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COSMIC EVOLUTION 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
NEW YORK + BOSTON + CHICAGO - DALLAS 
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COSMIC EVOL 


OUTLINES 
OF COSMIC IDEALISM 


BY 
JOHN ELOF poet 


PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
CARLETON COLLEGE 


j2em ork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1925 


All rights reserved 


CorPpyRIGHT, 1925. 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 





Set up and printed. 
Published December, 1925. 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY 
THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY 


TO MY FRIENDS OF THB ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY 
IN WHOSE SYMPATHETIC AND STIMULATING 
ENVIRONMENT THIS VOLUME WAS CONCEIVED 


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PREFACE 


THE time has come for a synthesis of the scattered _ele- 
ments of the new story of creation into an imaginative 
whole. The data have accumulated. with tremendous 
rapidity in the last generation. But the philosophic inter- 
pretation of the data into a world-view, on the one hand 
consistent with the facts revealed by science and, on the 
other, giving a significant place to the highest aspirations 
of the human soul, remains halting and inadequate. There 
can be no doubt, that the general drift of modern science 
has been toward materialism, in spite of the avowals of 
well-meaning popularizers of science to the contrary. It 
is necessary to separate the results of science from a mate- 
rialistic metaphysics which has been falsely confused with 
science. To see the true significance of evolution requires 
both a painstaking survey of the facts as we know them, 
including the facts of our spiritual as well as our sensuous 
experience, and a weaving of the many-coloured strands 
into a harmonious web in the spirit of “natural piety.” 
When this is done, it may be found that what is funda- 
mental in the insight of ages past appears as the golden 
thread in the new woof. 

The philosophic attitude of this book (as well as my 
previous volumes—Time and Reality, 1904; Truth and 
Reality, 1911; A Realistic Universe, 1916)—may be char- 
acterized as empirical realism and cosmic idealism. 

I have the precedent of Immanuel Kant for using two 
titles in describing my philosophy. Kant in his Critique of 
Pure Reason characterizes his philosophy as empirical 
realism and critical idealism. Unfortunately critical ideal- 
ism proved incompatible with empirical realism, and the 
latter was submerged in the speculative movement which 

7 


8 ~ COSMIC EVOLUTION 


followed Kant. It is rather to British thought that we 
must look for the continuous empirical tradition; and of 
this tradition I should like to regard myself as a part. In 
my philosophy, empirical realism indicates the method 
and cosmic idealism the conclusion. Empirical realism 
emphasizes my purpose to save the appearances, to use a 
phrase of Plato’s. Cosmic idealism is an attempt at a syn- 
thesis of the various aspects of reality as creatively 
revealed in human experience. Such a synthesis must 
mean not merely a descriptive survey of these aspects in 
the manner of the sciences, but an evaluation of them into 
a hierarchical system, which shall show their relative 
claims. Some aspects overlap; and while they cannot be 
said to be more real than other aspects, they are worth 
more for the comprehensive understanding of reality. How 
far I have been successful, my philosophy itself must show. 
At best, in so stupendous an undertaking, our efforts must 
prove provisional. The task of interpreting reality is infin- 
ite and relative to the creative advance of human thought. 
In the immortal language of a recent philosopher, “What 
is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.” I 
should be glad to be a bridge. The new story of creation 
is a “research magnificent,’ requiring the co-operation of 
countless workers for ages. Only the mere outline is now 
discernible and even this is subject to change. 

The structure of this book may be compared to the 
structure of asymphony. The work starts with a prelude, 
an introductory chapter on “Cosmic Evolution,” which 
states the main argument in somewhat general terms with 
a somewhat imaginative appeal to human interest, so as to 
beguile the reader to go on. The body of the work con- 
sists of three parts or movements which repeat with vari- 
ations the same theme, that of cosmic interaction. In the 
first part, the theme is stated in terms of the general the- 
ory of evolution, the story of our earth in its setting in the 
cosmos; in the second part, the theme is stated in terms 
of human nature and its evolutionary levels; in the third 
part, the theme is stated in terms of the theory of rela- 


PREFACE 9 


tivity and its cosmic implications. Each movement works 
up to the same climax and therefore has a certain com- 
pleteness of its own, but all three movements belong to 
the total development of the theme. In my opinion the 
concept of mind and the concept of relativity are as critical 
for a true philosophy of the universe as is the concept of 
evolution. The work ends with a postlude or finale which 
sums up in a somewhat lyric way the meaning of the whole 
under the title “Cosmic Religion.” 

As is not unusual, the last chapter was written first, 2.e., 
in its original form. The germinal idea came to me as an 
inspiration from a talk I had with Professor T. C. Cham- 
berlin, the famous geologist, at the Quadrangle Club of 
the University of Chicago, in the summer of 1919, which 
impressed me with the fact that everything evolves from 
the crust of the earth. That inspiration crystallized into a 
paper which I entitled “The Religion of Mother Earth,” 
which was published in the Hibbert Journal, July, 1921. 
It had already undergone transformations which made the 
original title somewhat of a misnomer, and so I have 
rechristened it “Cosmic Religion” in this book. The sub- 
conscious reverberations of this new idea did not take on 
definite structure until I read Professor 8. Alexander’s 
book, Space, Time and Deity, in the autumn of 1920. The 
reading of Alexander’s book proved an epoch in my life, 
for it made me conscious that I must undertake an inter- 
pretation of evolution which should furnish an alternative 
to the emergence theory so masterfully set forth by him. 
And so I was moved to write the paper on “Cosmic Evolu- 
tion” which gives an epitome of my theory. It was 
written mostly before the open fire in the smoking room 
of the University of London Club, whose kindly privi- 
leges I enjoyed during the winter I spent in London. 
Here it was my privilege to discuss the progress of the 
paper with some of the brilliant minds of England, in the 
genial atmosphere of smoke and English hospitality. In 
March, 1921, Professor H. Wildon Carr arranged for me to 
present my theory on Cosmic Evolution before the Aris- 


10 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


totelian Society of London. This gave me an opportunity 
to take part in an intellectual tournament with some of the 
greatest minds of England—minds knightly in their sense 
of fair play, possessed of great learning and dialectic skill 
but above all by love of the truth. I wish I might be able 
to state the argument here as convincingly as I did that 
night. But somehow thought can never be as real in 
impersonal writing as under the inspiration of the living 
dialectic of a great occasion. But, at any rate, I have done 
my best to build out the argument to meet the points 
raised in the discussion of that evening. The paper, 
“Cosmic Evolution,” was published in the Proceedings of 
the Aristotelian Society, 1920-’21, and is incorporated as 
Chapter I of this book. I feel indebted to the Psycho- 
logical Society of Cambridge and the Philosophical Society 
of Oxford for inviting me to read before them the paper 
on “Sensation, Imagination and Consciousness’—after- 
wards published in the Psychological Review, November 
1921, and largely embodied in Chapter IV of this book. 
Each society gave me a searching and stimulating evening 
of discussion. 

Perhaps I may add a suggestion to the general reader 
who is not a student of philosophy. If he does not have 
the time and patience to read the entire book, the first 
three and the last chapters will give a general idea of the 
author’s interpretation of evolution and do not assume 
more preparation than the cultured reader in our age 
would possess. For the reading of Part II an elementary 
knowledge of physiology and psychology is desirable. 
Chapter VI, “Theories of Relativity,” is of general interest 
at present. The interpretation of relativity has perhaps 
cost me as much labour as the rest of the book. I have 
made the subject as clear as I could make it without 
mathematics and by means of concrete illustrations. In 
Chapter VIII, I have tried to bring out the cosmic implica- 
tions of relativity. Chapter VII has to do with the philo- 
sophic bearings of relativity and will probably be of inter- 
est chiefly to students of philosophy. Those who are afraid 


PREFACE 11 


of anything written by a philosopher might start with the 
last chapter. The book is so constructed that every part, 
chapter, and section has a unity of its own; and the head- 
ings in the table of contents may serve to guide the reader 
to his interest. But the reader who wants to understand the 
world-view expressed in the book should read the book as a 
whole. If he has the persistence to travel the whole dis- 
tance, even the more arid parts, he may come upon an oasis 
of refreshment here and there to reward him for his toil. To 
students of philosophy I need not explain that this book, in 
their terminology, is a treatise on Cosmology and that it 
links up with the last chapter of A Realistic Universe, 
which is a treatise on Metaphysics. The sequence of Truth 
and Reality, A Realistic Universe, and Cosmic Evolution 
may be used as a general survey of the problems of phi- 
losophy. To these I hope to add before long a study in the 
philosophy of religion. 

I wish to thank the Hibbert Journal, The Aristotelian 
Socity, and the Psychological Review for allowing me to 
use the articles printed by them, as indicated above. I 
also wish to thank my colleagues, Professor W. M. Patton 
and Professor C. H. Gingrich, for reading the proof and for 
many suggestions. And finally I wish to thank my stu- 
dents of all the years for their perpetual faith and kindly 
encouragement. 


Northfield, Minnesota, U.S. A. 
September 1, 1925. 


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TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PU Nl eed Bat 


INTERACTION AND COSMIC EVOLUTION 


CHAP. 


I. Intropuctory SurvEy—Cosmic EVvoLution 


The Problem 

Science and Teleology 

Cosmic Levels and Interaction . 
II. Evonution as Cosmic ADAPTATION . 

The Tragedy of Science 

The Vicious Bifureation . . 

The Efficient Cause of Evaiition 


III. Evotution sas Cosmic INTERACTION . 
Two Points of View of Evolution 


The Conception of Cosmic Interaction . 
Preformism and Epigenesis Reconciled . 
Coexistent Levels in Cosmic Evolution . f 
The Evolution of Matter and Cosmic Levels . 
The Mechanism of Cosmic Energy Exchange . 
Materialism, Idealism, and Cosmic Interaction 


PART II 


HUMAN NATURE AND COSMIC EVOLUTION 


IV. SeEnsaTION, IMaGINATION, AND MIND 
The Organism and the Cosmos . 
The Protopathic and Epicritic Levels 


Selection and Integration. Neural Levels . 


Imagination Patterns and Sensations 
Suppression and Neural Levels . 


Neural Functioning in More Complete Re- 


actions 
Mind as a Sonal Su Ata af paieerna 
13 


135 
135 
142 
145 
147 
154 


156 
161 


14 TABLE OF CONTENTS 


CHAP. 
V. Tue MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS . 

The Muind- Body Relation 
The Individual in the er eanmtan 
The Nature of Mind . ele 
The Interrelation of Functions . 
ThebBirthotia Soul eee 
The Monad and the Whole . 
Mind in the Cosmos 


PAR DOLE 
RELATIVITY AND COSMIC EVOLUTION 


VI. THerorres oF RELATIVITY .. 
The Michelson Experiment and the! Fitzgerald 
Contraction ya { 

The Special Theory i Belstivity 
The General Theory of Relativity . 
Mathematics and Reality 

VII. Reauity anp Space-TIME PERSPECTIVES 
The Order of Nature . 
Qualities and the Per spectives af Migttns 
Primary Perspectives and Secondary Perspec- 

tives . 

Consciousness and (eeaashayer nds 
Reality as History . Aa Onan 

VIII. Rewativiry anp THe LAw oF THE WHOLE . 
Cosmic Adjustment 
Cosmic Space 
Cosmic Cycles . 

TIX. FinateE—Cosmic RELIGION 

The Awakening of Mother Earth 
The Song of Mother Earth 
The Aspiration to Divinity . 

INDEX 


PAGE 
170 
170 
192 
210 
232 
240 
252 
260 


2795 


276 
279 
294 
307 
326 
O20 
342 


368 
386 
401 


423 
424 
432 
44] 
456 
456 
464 
466 
473 


PART I 
INTERACTION AND COSMIC EVOLUTION 


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CHARTER AT 
COSMIC EVOLUTION 
INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 


The Problem 


THERE is a fascination about creating a world from the 
beginning. So we shall always have our cosmogonies. But 
the temptation is, not only in philosophy and religion but 
also in science, to adopt the geocentric point of view. We 
are prone to treat the evolution of our earth as an inde- 
pendent drama. Science finds it convenient to proceed 
from the simple to the more complex. This, no doubt, 
has its justification as a device of method. Science deals 
with sequences and the predictions based on their recur- 
rence. It cannot explain why one event follows another. 
This is the province of philosophy or religion, not of 
science. Science ascertains that life appears on the earth 
under certain conditions. It should not say, though it is 
prone to say, that the previous events or conditions gave 
rise to life or created life. It should, however, aim at a 
complete inventory of the conditions. 

It was observed long ago by Heraclitus that there must 
_be an upward and a downward path in the movement of 
reality. Science sees only the downward path. It starts 
with the unequal distribution of energy, and observes that 
motion is produced by energy flowing from a higher level 
to a lower level. Its characteristic law is the law of degra- 
dation of energy. Everything tends towards the level of 
unavailable intra-molecular vibration or dispersed heat. 
The universe of science is on the road to bankruptcy. 
What is more, if the universe is thus a running-down con- 
cern, be the loss of energy ever so small in each transaction, 
so long as it is a finite quantity, the universe must have 

17 


18 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


gone dead ages ago. But somehow the universe seems to 
be a going concern, and this should give us pause. It 
would seem, at any rate, that in the cosmos as a whole 
there is perpetual motion. | 

Science misses the significance of this fact because of its 
bias. It selects certain aspects that suit its convenience. 
It is interested in description and prediction, and there- 
fore emphasizes the quantitative and measurable aspects. 
Hence its partiality for the lower grades of existence, in 
short, for the inorganic, and its attempt to reduce every- 
thing else to physical and mechanical terms. It fails to 
see the significance of the aspects it selects within the life 
of the whole, and therefore lands in absurdity. It deals 
with the past, with the stream of reality as it congeals 
into habits and structures and their uniformities. The 
onward sweep, the creative passing of nature, escapes it 
(or at most receives consideration only so far as it can be 
stated in quantitative symbols). It is absorbed in particu- 
lars and so misses the concrete flow of the real world. Yet 
to understand the downward path we must understand 
the upward path, to understand the part we must under- 
stand its interactions within the whole. 

Because of the bias of science and of its geocentric point 
of view, it is under the necessity of accounting for the 
higher levels, such as life and intelligence, as having been 
produced by the preceding stages. Thus we have to ac- 
count for life in terms of the lifeless and intelligence in 
terms of the unintelligent. Chance becomes the absolute 
arbiter of evolution. But this makes it impossible to ac- 
count for order and meaning in the world. 

In order that we may discover system in the facts of 
perception, there must be the basis of system in the facts 
themselves, as well as in the mind which selects and con- 
structs. The mind itself, moreover, is not a thing apart in 
the cosmos, but is itself the product of cosmic evolution. 
The demand for system in it cannot be alien to the cosmos. 
Now the characteristics which are necessary for any system 
whatsoever are diversity, recurrence, and order. Unless 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 19 


there is diversity in our material we shall have no basis for 
constructing systems, for there will be nothing to systema- 
tize. Further, unless our diverse facts or variables recur, i.e., 
unless they have such a constancy or generality as enables 
us to identify them again and deal with them as the same 
for the purpose in question, whether it be a mathematical 
problem or a chemical analysis, we obviously cannot have 
system. In a world where nothing recurs, we can say 
nothing about it, for there remains neither any mind to say 
anything nor any object to say anything about. Finally, 
there must be an implied order in the facts with which we 
deal. Else we shall never discover order. And it is the 
business of science to discover order, not to impose an arbi- 
trary order. If you hold that order for science is merely 
a matter of convenience, then we should reply that, in a 
world without order, one way of reading the facts could 
be no more convenient than another, for in such a world 
there could be no basis for the prediction of events. The 
events of the scientist’s mind would be equally crazy with 
the outer events and no agreement would be possible. We 
must, then, presuppose order in the cosmos, if we are going 
to have science. Is it possible that this order itself is the 
product of chance? 


Science and Teleology 

Science is becoming gradually aware that we cannot ac- 
count for the order even in physical nature on the basis of 
mere chance. The investigations of Professor Henderson 
lead him to the conclusion that there is “revealed an order 
or pattern in the properties of the elements.’* This 
order, to be sure, is “hidden, when one considers the prop- 
erties of matter abstractly and statically, for it is recog- 
nizable and intelligible only through its effects. It becomes 
evident only when time is taken into consideration. It 
has a dynamical significance and relates to evolution.” ° 
It is an order, moreover, that we discover in nature. It 


1The Order of Nature, Lawrence J. Henderson, p. 184. 
* Ibid., pp. 184, 185. 


20 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


is no more subjective than the periodic law of elements. 
But it is a dynamic order, and has significance only in a 
moving equilibrium such as nature is. It is in the rela- 
tion of inorganic evolution to organic evolution that this 
significance becomes especially clear. Henderson comes 
to the conclusion that the complicated set of conditions 
necessary for the existence of life imply such an orderly 
selection: “There is, in truth, not one chance in countless 
millions that the many unique properties of carbon, hydro- 
gen, and oxygen, and especially of their stable compounds, 
water and carbonic acid, which chiefly make up the atmos- 
phere of a new planet, should simultaneously occur in the 
three elements otherwise than through the operation of a 
natural law which somehow connects them together. There 
is no greater probability that these unique properties 
should be without due (2e., relevant) cause uniquely 
favourable to the organic mechanism. These are no mere 
accidents; an explanation is to seek. It must be admitted, 
however, that no explanation is at hand.” * And no ex- 
planation is possible so long as we look upon geological 
evolution as an isolated affair. But more of this later. 
The probability of order can at any rate be statistically 
established. “We can, on no account, unless we are to 
abandon the principle of probability which is the basis of 
every scientific induction, deny this connection, in char- 
acter an adaptation, between the diversities of matter and 
the diversity of evolution. . . . Other things being 
equal, there is a maximum ‘freedom’ for such evolution 
on account of a certain unique arrangement of unique 
properties of matter. The chance that this unique en- 
semble of properties should occur by ‘accident’ is almost 
infinitely small (7.e., less than any probability which can 
he practically considered). The chance that each of the 
unit properties of the ensemble by itself and in co-opera- 
(ion with the others, should accidentally contribute to this 
‘freedom’ a maximum increment is also infinitely small. 
Therefore there is a relevant causal connection between 
* The Fitness of the Environment, Lawrence J. Henderson, p. 276. 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 21 


the properties of the elements and the ‘freedom’ of evolu- 
tion.” “ By “freedom” is meant freedom of trial and error 
experimentation with a chance of “considerable success.” 

Following the lead of Willard Gibbs, Henderson endeav- 
ours to bring his argument to a focus by laying down 
certain postulates. One has to do with the conservation of 
properties. “The properties of elements are to be re- 
garded as fully determined from the earliest conceivable 

epoch and perfectly changeless in time.” ’ This postulate 
does not rest merely on a priori reasoning, but on experi- 
mental evidence. Spectral analysis identifies the presence 
of the same elements with the same properties in other 
parts of the cosmos, and that seems to hold irrespective of 
the age and temperature of the celestial bodies. We know 
also that meteoric iron has the same specific gravity and 
properties as terrestrial.” In the absence of evidence to 
the contrary, we may then regard the properties of ele- 
ments as constant. Again, the characteristics of systems 
may be treated as independent of the properties of any 
particular energy complex. We may then lay it down asa 
postulate that “the abstract characteristics of systems 
must also be fully determined and absolutely changeless 
in time.’ ” The separation of the characteristics of sys- 
tems from the matrix of properties and conditions has, of 
course, its statistical convenience. But we must not forget 
that we are dealing here with a logical abstraction. The 
human mind is itself an energy system among energy 
systems. It is part of the cosmos. Because it possesses 
the characteristics of system, it can discover system in the 
objective world. But it can do so only because the ob- 
jective world itself possesses the characteristics of system, 
i.e., because there is the necessary diversity, recurrence 
and order in its events. The fitness of the properties and 
elements for system can, therefore, not be an accident as 
it is in the Kantian philosophy where the mind 1s treated 


*The Order of Nature, pp. 190, 191. 

© Ibid., p. 201. 

° Faraday Lecture by Professor Richards, 1911. 
™The Order of Nature, p. 202. 


22 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


as a thing apart. Henderson states the fitness of the facts 
for system in the following proposition: ‘The relation 
between the numerous properties of hydrogen, carbon, and 
oxygen severally and in co-operation (relatively to the 
same relation between the properties of all the other ele- 
ments), and the necessary conditions of existence in respect 
of number, diversity, and durability, as these conditions are 
defined by Willard Gibbs is not merely contingent.” ° 

What is of interest to us is that inorganic nature is such 
that it makes possible the discovery of systems in its be- 
haviour; that, moreover, this order is forward-looking or 
an adaptation to the appearance and development of life. 
Henderson’s statistical evidence points to the conclusion 
that the fulfillment of the conditions for lfe—involving, 
as they do, the establishing of the proper quantitative 
proportions, the concentration and availability of certain 
necessary elements such as carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, 
and their compounds water and carbonic acid, with the 
ensemble of characteristics and conditions necessary for 
the existence and development of life—is so complicated 
that it is infinitely improbable that it should have hap- 
pened by chance. ‘Hence we are obliged to regard this 
collocation of properties as in some intelligible sense a 
preparation for the processes of planetary evolution,” ° 
and “as possessing a teleological character.” Further than 
this Henderson does not go. He does not show why the 
processes on our earth should have a teleological character, 
and no such explanation is possible so long as we limit our 
attention to our earth and its conditions. 

If we now pass from the inorganic to the organic level 
of existence we find the same problem, only more compli- 
cated. No one has faced the problem with greater candour 
than Professor Osborn. While Osborn adopts the physico- 
chemical theory of life, he does so without committing 
himself to materialism. ‘Without being either a mechan- 
ist or materialist, one may hold the opinion that life is a 


§ Tbid., p. 202. 
° Ibid., pp. 191, 192. 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 23 


continuation of the evolutionary process rather than an 
exception to the rest of the cosmos, because both mechan- 
ism and materialism are words borrowed from other sources 
which do not in the least convey the i impression which the 
activities of the cosmos make upon us. This impression is 
that of limitless and ordered energy.” *° The evolution 
of life upon our planet must be regarded as a distinctly 
new step in the process of development. ‘As compared 
with stellar evolution, living matter does not follow the old 
evolutionary order, but represents a new assemblage of 
energies and new types of action, reaction, and interaction 
—to use the terms of thermodynamics—between the chem- 
ical elements which may be as old as the cosmos itself, 
unless they prove to represent an evolution from still 
simpler elements. The evolutionary process now takes 


an entirely new and different direction . . . essentially 
constructive. . . . It isa continuous creation or creative 
evolution.” ** But how is such a creative step, with the 


series of creative steps to follow, possible? It 1s not 1m- 
possible that some new element may be discovered in life 
compounds. But it is more probable “that unknown prin- 
ciples of action, reaction, and interaction” between living 
forms await such discovery. The difference between the 
lowliest organisms and inorganic compounds does not seem 
to him so vast but that we may discover the bridge— 
“namely, whether it is solely physico-chemical in its ener- 
gies, or whether it includes a plus energy or element which 
may have distinguished life from the beginning.” ** But 
in any case “there is positive disproof of an internal per- 
fecting principle or entelechy which would impel animals 
to evolve in a given direction, regardless of the direct, 
reversed, or alternating directions taken by the organism 
in seeking its life environment or physical environ- 
ment. . . . The conclusive evidence against an élan 
vital or internal perfecting tendency, however, is that these 


1° The Origin and Evolution of Life, Henry Fairfield Osborn, p. 3. 
wl DIG. spp 4-0 
4? Ibid., p. 281. 


24 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


characters do not spring autonomously at any one time; 
they may be dormant or rudimentary for great periods of 
time. . . . They require something to call them forth, 
to make them active so to speak.” ** This arousing of a 
latent new character may be effected through chemical 
messengers “by stimulating the transformation of. energy 
at a specific point.” 

As regards the arising of new forms, Osborn rejects em- 
phatically the doctrine of chance which, since Darwin, has 
been fashionable with writers on evolution. “T have long 
maintained that this opinion is a biological dogma 
which has gained credence through constant reiteration, 
for I do not think that it has ever been demonstrated 
through the actual observation of any evolutionary 
series.’ As a matter of fact, the series of life forms on 
the earth has not been such as we should expect on the 
basis of chance. The existence of law in the evolution of 
life is no longer a matter of opinion but of direct observa- 
tion. So far as law is concerned, we observe that the evo- 
lution of life forms is like that of the stars; their origin 
and evolution as revealed through paleontology go to 
prove that Aristotle was essentially right when he said 
that “nature produces those things which, being continu- 
ously moved by a certain principle contained in them- 
selves, arrive at a certain end.” ** This end is no “super- 
natural or teleological interposition through an externally 
creative power.” It is a law immanent in the process 
itself. But it does not seem as though a law immanent in 
the process, such as Osborn postulates, could account for 
the process taking on new form and character. On the 
basis of an immanent law it would seem rather that the 


wend horteher's WuAweyasy 

+4 Ibid., p. 9. Osborn has ample support for his theory of immanence 
in Aristotle’s biological treatises and also in the Metaphysics, especially 
when Aristotle is concerned with the criticism of the transcendence of 
the Platonic Ideas. See T. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, Eng. tr., vol. iv, 
pp. 82, 132. But in Aristotle’s theology Plato’s transcendentalism 
asserts itself in the “Unmoved Mover,” the God above the world of 
change. See Met., Bk. XII, W. D. Ross’s scholarly edition and transla- 
pen shall return to Aristotle’s philosophy of evolution in Chap- 
ter ; 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 25 


process should remain eternally what it is. But this is 
just what it does not seem to do if we take account of 
geological evolution alone. Only the whole is self-sus- 
taining, self-contriving, and moves by its own law. Each 
part moves as it does by virtue of the actions, reactions, 
and interactions of the part within the whole. 

We may analyze the fundamental law of life into four 
factors: “In each organism the phenomena of life repre- 
sent the action, reaction, and interaction of four complexes 
of physico-chemical energy, namely, those of (1) the in- 
organic environment, (2) the developing organism (proto- 
plasm and body-chromatin), (3) the germ or heredity 
chromatin, (4) the life environment. Upon the resultant 
actions, reactions, and interactions of potential and kinetic 
energy in each organism, selection is constantly operating 
wherever there is competition with the corresponding ac- 
tions, reactions, and interactions of other organisms.” *° 
The Darwinian principle of natural selection is thus given 
a subordinate, though a real, place. Since the beginning 
of life there has been competition of organisms with other 
organisms as well as the survival selection of the inorganic 
environment. But “selection is not a form of energy nor 
a part of the energy complex; it is an arbiter between 
different complexes and forms of energy; it antedates the 
origin of life as remarked by Henderson.” *” To quote 
but one illustration of the inadequacy of natural selection 
as an explanatory principle: “The general fact that the 
slow-breeding elephants evolved very much more rapidly 
than the frequently breeding rodents, such as the mice and 
rats (Muride) is one of the many evidences that the rate 
of evolution may not be governed by the frequency of 
natural selection and elimination.” *’ Neither the origin 
nor the development of life can be accounted for by this 
principle. Moreover, many species have disappeared, so 
far as we can see, without the interference of natural selec- 


15 Ibid. p. 21. 
16 Thid., p. 20. 
17 Tbid., p. 271, 


26 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


tion—by some internal rhythm which we do not under- 
stand. Special emphasis is laid on the continuity and 
guiding influence of the heredity chromatin. But while 
it is supposed to be the presiding genius of all phases of 
development, we are ignorant as to how it accomplishes 
this. “We are equally ignorant as to how the chromatin 
responds to the actions, reactions, and interactions of the 
body cells, of the life environment, and of the physical 
environment, so as to call forth a new and adaptive char- 
acter, unless it be through some infinitely complex system 
of chemical messengers and other catalytic agencies.” *° 
Surely a large bill of ignorance, which hardly justifies all 
the superlatives with which biologists invest it. In some 
way it is evidently subject to modification. Osborn suggests 
that as there is a centrifugal action whereby certain cells 
of the reproductive glands affect, in an important way, all 
the body cells, including the brain centre of intelligence, 
so it is likely that there is a “centripetal action whereby 
chemical messengers from any part of the body specifically 
affect the heredity germ and thus the new generation to 
which it will give rise.” The heredity germ is not entirely 
indifferent to the external environment. ‘Taking the 
whole history of vertebrate life from the beginning, we 
observe that every prolonged old adaptive phase in a simi- 
lar habitat becomes impressed in the heredity characters 
of the chromatin. Throughout the development the chro- 
matin always retains, more or less, potentiality of repeating 
the embryonic, immature, and more rarely some of 
the mature structures of older adaptive phases in the older 
environments. This is the law of ancestral repetition.” *’ 

If the causes of evolution are obscure, the sequences are 
becoming increasingly clear. ‘What we have gained dur- 
ing the past century is positive knowledge of the chief 
modes of evolution; we know almost the entire history of 
the transformation of many different kinds of mammals. 
These modes, as distinguished from unknown causes, are 


18 Ibid. p. 98. 
1° Thid., p. 152. 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 27 


expressed in the following laws: first, the law of continu- 
ity; natura non fecit saltum, there is prevailing continuity 
in the change of form and proportion in evolution as in 
growth.” “* Perrin Smith, in the case of the cephalopod 
molluses and the Triassic ammonites, “observes that the 
evolution of form continues uninterruptedly, even when 
there is no evidence whatever of environmental change. 
Conversely environmental change does not necessarily in- 
duce evolution—for example, during the Age of Mam- 
mals, although the mammals developed an infinite variety 
of widely different forms, the reptiles show very little 
change.” ** This graduated character of change in the 
evolution of life was clearly expressed in the mutations of 
Waagen, who discovered a complete fossil series of am- 
monites in 1869, and formulated Waagen’s law. “It is that 
certain new characters arise definitely and continuously 
and, as Osborn has shown, adaptively.” ** Osborn does 
not forget the fact of mutations in the more recent sense, 
but he feels that they play a minor role, accounting for 
no more than one-fifth of the variations in mammal evolu- 
tion. Biologists may object to such a stepmotherly treat- 
ment of a current hypothesis. Perhaps it cannot be 
brushed aside so lightly. But the difference may not be 
so great as appears. The concept of mutations is not 
without its ambiguity, since any variation which persists 
in heredity is called a mutation. It becomes, therefore, 
to a considerable extent a matter of definition. This we 
must leave to those concerned. One thing is certain, viz., 
that in many processes we observe a graded and orderly 
sequence leading towards a specific end. As Bergson has 
so well pointed out, the mere fact that variations come In 
sudden leaps would, no more than small variations, account 
for the adaptation of such a complicated organ as the eye 
for seeing. It would rather increase than lessen the diffi- 
culty. If we must reject an innate élan vital, we must 


20 Ibid., p. 251. 
21 Ibid., p. 251. 
22 Ibid. p. 139. 


28 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


seek the clue for such adaptation in cosmic interaction. 
We can agree at least that if there had been no light there 
would have been no eyes. This is no accidental corre- 
spondence. We must rather suppose that it is due to the 
organizing presence of light patterns that the organism 
was led to contrive eyes. This has been, moreover, a trial 
and error process, upon the successes and failures of which 
natural selection has acted. 

This leads us to the second law, “the law of rectigrada- 
tion, under which many important new characters appear 
definitely, and take an adaptive direction from the start.” ** 
Thus we “observe in the characters springing from the 
heredity chromatin a predetermination of another kind, 
namely, the origin through causes we do not understand 
of a tendency toward an independent appearance or birth 
at different periods of geologic time of similar new and 
useful characters,’ not in the ancestral body forms.** The 
discovery of this law, with which Osborn’s name is espe- 
cially associated, is the strongest argument for order in 
evolution as opposed to blind chance. “The third law is 
the law of acceleration and retardation, witnessed both in 
racial and individual development, whereby each character 
has its own velocity, or rate of development, which displays 
itself both in the time of its origin, in its rate of evolution, 
and its rate of individual development.” **® The last law 
underlies the profound changes of proportion as illustrated 
in mammals, for example the long neck of the giraffe and 
the short neck of the elephant. Few new characters are 
observed to originate In mammals. The changes are due 
for the most part to loss of characters and changes in pro- 
portion. This individuality of characters, their separate 
rate of movement, and their co-ordination, furnish to-day 
the bulk of descriptive explanation of life forms and func- 
tions. Their evolution exemplifies the law of compensa- 
tion. The special development of one character means the 


23 Thid., pp. 251, 252. 
24 Thid., pp. 251, 252. 
#8 Thad Din 202. 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 29 


sacrifice of others, as in the case of the extra toes of the 
horse. The sacrificed parts are never regained, and in 
this sense chromatin evolution is irreversible. Reversal 
of adaptation must be regarded as “the reversal of func- 
tion rather than of structure.” *° 


Cosmic Levels and Interaction. 


Such are some of the problems of evolution. But how 
shall we account for the appearance of life as a new syn- 
thesis of energies, for the appearance of new characters, 
new species and individuals in the life process, and for 
the order and adaptiveness of the evolutionary series? *’ 
No doubt the biologist must fix his mind on Osborn’s four 
causes, viz., the inorganic environment, the developing 
organism (protoplasm and body chromatin), the germ or 
heredity chromatin, and the life environment, with their 
action, reaction, and interaction. But these obviously do 
not account for the adaptiveness of the physical level for 
the emergence of life, nor for the origin of the organic 
level of energy with its new and unique ensemble of prop- 
erties, nor for the emergence of new properties and their 
adaptive order and organization in the evolutionary series. 
If you assume that these characters are stimulated by 
chemical messengers, you must still account for the origin 
and order of properties and show how chemical messengers 
are stimulated and controlled. The scientist may be sat- 
isfied to trace the sequences and their apparent conditions; 
but the philosopher cannot stop here. He must furnish 
a rationale of the process as a whole; and this the one-way 
series of the earth’s evolution cannot furnish by itself. I 

°° Ibid., p. 198. 

?7 The discontinuous character of the evolutionary series has impressed 
me for many years, in fact ever since I began philosophizing. In an 
article in the Psychol. Rev., 1906, entitled “Mind as Instinct” (reprinted 
in Truth and Reality, 1911, as Chapter II), I pointed out the discon- 
tinuous stages in human development; in Chapter III, “Categories of 
Intelligence,” in the same book, I dealt with levels of intelligence; in 
A Realistic Universe, 1916, Chapters III and XVII, I emphasized the 
hierarchy of energy systems with their unique characteristics, and sug- 


gested that there must be levels in the cosmos to account for the 
levels of evolution. 


30 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


do not see any reason for assuming that the inorganic 
environment has any special wisdom for guiding and con- 
trolling the evolutionary process. We must take account 
also of cosmic interaction and control. The interaction 
with the sun is important, but it is not sufficient. I would 
rather be a sun-worshipper than a materialist. But solar 
energy cannot communicate what the sun does not possess. 

It is evident, at any rate, that the evolutionary process 
implies factors which are not indigenous to our earth — 
taken in isolation, or even as a storehouse of solar energy. 
To say that the new factors are due to creative evolution 
is merely another way of stating that they appear in a 
certain sequence on our earth. It does not explain why 
they appear. Nor are we greatly aided by the suggestion 
of Arrhenius that the simplest forms of life are carried by 
dust particles and sown into interstellar space, to be picked 
up somehow by moving masses. Apart from the difficul- 
ties involved in such an hypothesis, it could not explain 
why a planet should evolve so as to be prepared for life; 
nor could it explain the evolution of new characters and 
forms. The step from the spores to the cell seems as in- 
surmountable as the step from the inorganic to the spore. 
And how should we account for the appearance of new 
characters and their adaptive order? They must be wise 
spores to account for all this. Is it not more reasonable 
to assume that life-giving patterns from the cosmic con- 
tinuum shape themselves a body even as light patterns 
shape themselves an eye? 

If the gulf from the inorganic to the organic is insuper- 
able on the basis of mechanism and chance, so is the gulf 
from the organic to the mental. “There is no alchemy 
by which we may get golden conduct out of leaden instincts 
(so Herbert Spencer told us very truly).” ** So there is 
no alchemy by means of which we can compound auto- 
matic reflexes into selective thought. It is false to oppose 
thought to conation. Thought is but the will-to-know. 
And thought can know the order implied in itself and the 

28 The Idea of Progress, W. R. Inge, p. 33. 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 31 


universe only by a trial and error process until it gradually 
finds the successful method. This is as true in the realms 
of the good and the beautiful as in the realm of the true. 
For true means true for an interest which seeks fulfil- 
ment, and the final interest is to live and to live more 
abundantly. Thought must thus be understood as an 
energy system, selecting, rejecting, co-ordinating and in- 
tegrating the energy characters communicated to it. Its 
function is a double one—that of discovering the order of 
the energy patterns with which it deals, and that of com- 
municating its energy pattern to .a special part of the 
matter of its environment. It thus recreates or recon- 
structs its world and gives rise to science, morality, art, 
and religion, according to the aspect emphasized: science 
as the product of the will to know, morality as the objec- 
tification of the desire to live harmoniously in social rela- 
tions, beauty as the desire for disinterested enjoyment, 
and religion as the desire for personal communion with 
the universe. But thought cannot be understood as iso- 
lated and cut off from the rest of the universe. It can 
arise only in the interactions of social relations. It pre- 
supposes an intersubjective continuum. Just as the organ- 
ism has been evolved so as to respond to the physical con- 
tinua of light, heat, chemical change, and material im- 
pact, so it has been differentiated for the purpose of mental 
interaction—the response to other subjects or personali- 
ties. Only so could we become aware of other minds. If 
we say with McDougall ** that we respond sympathetically 
because of various modifications or inlets of our instincts, 
this only pushes the problem further back into the history 
of the race. Just as the eye has been created in response 
to light, so these inlets have been created in response to 
the mental continuum. Neither has happened by a series 
of accidents, but as a result of.an adaptive growth in re- 
sponse to the requirements of the universe. In this social 
interaction we find that fruitful contacts are established 
when a higher level of culture comes into touch with a 
29 An Introduction to Social Psychology, 1915, pp. 93, 94. 


32 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


lower level of culture, given, of course, the creative re- 
sponse of mind. So the possibility of thought at all and 
the progress of thought are possible because of the flow 
from a higher level of organization in the cosmos -to a 
lower level. For in the last analysis thought is part of 
the cosmic order communicated to our organism when 
it is prepared, and increasingly as it becomes further pre- 
pared. The limit for us of perfect order, perfect system, 
is the dawning consciousness of the order and system which 
prevail in the universe and strive for rapport with us. 

Modern philosophy has been inclined to follow the lead 
of science and to regard the universe as a one-way series 
proceeding from the simple to the more complex. The 
aspect which philosophers have selected as the ultimate 
stuff of things varies, but the difficulty is fundamentally 
the same. They may start with material atoms or elec- 
trons and their chance combinations. They may go fur- 
ther back and start with a homogeneous fluid stiffened into 
vortex rings by introducing motion. They may even try 
to compound the world out of neutral stuff by means of 
velocity. They may presuppose nothing but the geometri- - 
cal concept of space-time and its growing complexities of 
transformation. We have here no interest in the details 
of such attempts nor in their logical consistency. In every 
case we have the same difficulty, namely, that of showing 
why such combinations should yield anything but the facts 
with which we started; why matter should yield anything 
but matter, space-time anything but space-time. To say 
that the higher levels of existence emerge from the simpler 
levels is to beg the question. How could they emerge 
from them? How can any process lift itself by its boot- 
straps? We are really asked to believe in a series of mir- 
acles which have no intelligible basis in what is supposed 
to precede. 

It is probable, however, that the constitution of the 
universe may be pluralistic, that our cosmic continuum 
may be a complex of many levels, that the higher stages 
or levels, with their characteristics and order, are not 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 33 


created by the earlier ones, even though they may succeed 
them in our geological series, but are due to a give and 
take process in the universe, higher levels being due to 
higher levels elsewhere. Thus life may not emerge merely 
from inorganic elements and their ensemble of conditions, 
but may imply, besides, the communication of unique 
energy patterns which furnish the impetus to the unique 
synthesis of the specific ensemble. We know that our 
earth cannot be regarded as an independent entity in the 
universe. It floats in a continuum of energies of vast 
complexity. It is a torpedo driven and directed by electro- 
magnetic waves through infinite space. And as the earth’s 
physical motion and direction is thus furnished by the 
continuum of which it is a part, may not its order of de- 
velopment be thus dictated in interaction with its unique 
constitution and its cumulative character of development? 
We have here the plus energy which makes upward evolu- 
tion possible, which winds the cosmic clock. We know 
that the development of life would not be possible on the 
earth except for the action and storing of solar energy. We 
know that plants owe their symmetry of development to 
the action of solar rays. May it not be that the process 
as a whole imitates the order of the larger cosmos as the 
flatfish through its eyes imitates the pattern upon which it 
lies, not knowing what it is doing? The universe as a whole 
may be a system of compensating rhythms where worlds 
grow up and die as parts of a self-sustaining whole. The 
life cycles of the earth no more happen by chance than 
those of the individual organism which is a part of its 
history. It is absurd to suppose that the cosmic system 
as a whole emerges from chaos. In the rhythmic whole 
the higher levels may always be compresent with and 
interpenetrate the simpler levels of existence and the whole 
may be dominated by creative genius. Law and order 
on the simpler levels may be due to the directing by such 
universal genius communicated from part to part, ever 
present to create according to the unique conditions. The 
role of matter may be to furnish the storage of energy and 


34 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the complexity of conditions, which are required for such 
creativeness. 

It is absurd to deny this because of the limitation of our 
instruments if the facts point that way. Our instruments 
—our seismographs, our telephones, our Crookes’ tubes, 
our sense-organs—are necessarily attuned to special types 
of impulse. Now the only instruments that could respond 
to life patterns are certain complexities and conditions of 
matter that nature furnishes, and that we have tried in 
vain to imitate. The only instruments that can respond 
to thought patterns of energy are neural systems of a cer- 
tain complexity and intensity. The only instrument that 
can respond in the way of spiritual communion is a devout 
heart. In each case the impulse which makes possible 
a new synthesis comes from without—from the larger 
order of the universe. This is the element of grace, the 
divine gift which makes us, finites, more than we are and 
wiser than we know. It is this which impregnates the ex- 
isting order and endows it with the hidden potentiality by 
means of which it can create new steps, be it the new syn- 
theses in inorganic nature and their ordered procession to 
life, the adaptive series of life forms, or the new inven- 
tions in art, science, and morality. It is true that every 
noble thought and every holy desire comes from above. 
It is a cosmic inspiration for which we, through a process 
of infinite and painful trial and error experimentation— 
for cosmic ages unconscious and now partly conscious— 
furnish the body, the vehicle, the conditions, and at length 
the responsive soul. In every case the genius in nature is 
wiser than we with our artificial manipulations and our 
attempts to imitate nature, for nature has devised instru- 
ments for the selective response to light waves with their 
complexity; it has originated life compounds with their 
unique capacity for response to the universe; it has de- 
vised a complicated nervous system for the reaction to 
thought patterns, long before we have become conscious 
of the existence of such instruments. We are like ants 
moving on an immense sphere who, because of the limi- 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 30 


tation of their senses, might imagine that they live in flat 
land and construct a geometry of two dimensions. But 
just as an unusually wise ant might discover the discrep- 
ancy of its theory with the behaviour of the universe and 
infer another dimension, so we through our failure to give 
a reasonable account of our world must learn to discover 
other dimensions of the reality that lies about us, and in 
which we live and move and have our being. While, 
moreover, we are apt to notice the creative discontinuities 
in nature only when they become striking and wrench our 
habits of thought, such as the passing from one level of 
reality to another—from the inorganic to the organic, from 
habit to thought—we must remember that the creative 
passing of nature within each level no less requires ex- 
planation. It is just as difficult to explain how the com- 
bination of hydrogen and oxygen in the proportion H,O 
can, under certain conditions, produce the unique en- 
semble of properties that we call water, as how certain 
chemical elements in a certain proportion and under cer- 
tain unknown conditions can produce life. In each case 
we must add the genius of nature. We may be confident 
that the creative order which has brought us hither and 
which evokes our admiration and awe has its sufficient 
reason. If Aphrodite did rise in her full-formed beauty 
from the mists of the sea, it was not altogether owing to 
the potencies of salt water. There was also the cosmic 
genius of Zeus. 

We may think of the universe as a sort of organism or 
superorganism. Now we know that the organism develops 
as it does, not merely through the action and reaction 
of its parts, but by virtue of the interaction of its parts. 
And by interaction we mean “what is going on between 
material parts which are connected with each other by 
other parts and cannot be analyzed at all by the two 
ereat dynamic principles alone without a knowledge of 
the structure which connects the interacting parts.” °° We 
have been concerned in the past mainly with the interact- 

8° The Origin and Evolution of Life, by H. F. Osborn, p. 15. 


36 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


ing function of nerve impulses. But latterly we are learn- 
ing that “an interacting enzyme, hormone, or other chem- 
ical messenger circulating in the blood may profoundly 
modify the growth of a great organism.” ** Thus “every 
physico-chemical action and reaction concerned in the 
transformation, conservation and dissipation \of energy 
produces also, either as a direct result or as a by-product, 
a physico-chemical agent of interaction which permeates 
and affects the organism as a whole or affects only some 
special part.” °** In the complex economy of plants, chem- 
ical messengers, in the absence of a nervous system, fur- 
nish the sole means of interaction. But they are no less 
important in the animal economy as is adumbrated in the 
effects on growth and proportion of such ductless glands 
as the pituitary body and the thyroid and parathyroid 
glands. It is by means of these messengers that the body 
acts as an organic whole. What is more: ‘The so-called 
organs of internal secretion are not unique, but the bones, 
muscles, skin, brain, and every part of the body are fur- 
nishing internal secretions necessary to the development 
and proper functioning of all the other organs of the 
bodys) 

If we look upon the universe as an organic whole, then 
we must suppose that the parts not only act and react, but 
that they also interact. Through such interaction every 
part of the universe comes to participate, in so far as it 1s 
prepared to participate, in the energy patterns—the com- 
plexity, order and development—of other parts, and 1s 
thus stimulated and controlled, 7.e., subject to its own 
reaction as determined by its process of development. 
Since in the universe as a whole all the levels of reality 
may be supposed eternally to coexist, there would thus be 
provided the rationale for the evolution in any one part 
of the cosmos from a lower to a higher level of existence — 
without introducing magic. How energy patterns are 

#7 Lbid.; e a 


AP LOW 
hid dertr As: nee 7289, 290. 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 37 


emitted and transmitted from part to part of the cosmos 
is a problem which must wait for further investigation. 
We are familiar with some energy patterns which are thus 
transmitted, such as light and radiant heat. Lately we 
have become acquainted with a variety of energy rays, the 
existence of which we had not suspected. I have main- 
tained elsewhere that in social interaction we must assume 
an intermental continuum of energy, or rather that our 
minds are differentiations and concentrations within such 
a continuum. This seems the only alternative to solipsism. 
What, except prejudice, can there be in the way of our 
supposing that our earth in its actions and reactions 
transmits through the common continuum energy waves 
which correspond to its characteristic complexity of com- 
position, form and development, such impulses finding 
their way to other parts of the universe, there to undergo 
selection and response in so far as conditions are pre- 
pared? For we must remember that not only electrical, 
chemical, radioactive and other inorganic energies are 
part of the earth’s life and control; but organic, mental and 
even the most spiritual energies are part of its unity and 
life. And we have reason to believe that in its inter- 
actions with other parts of the cosmos the earth acts not 
only through differential impulses but as a unique whole, 
under one control. 

I do not say that the body of matter 1s communicated in 
the form that our senses reveal. But neither is the para- 
thyroid gland transmitted to our toes. What it does trans- 
mit is its characteristic action in the form of a secretion. 
We know that the violin in the hands of the skilful player 
transmits in its tone-quality all the qualities of the com- 
plex structure and its manipulation, the qualities of its 
strings, its bridge, its body (the nature of the wood and its 
age as well as its form), the bow, the atmospheric effects, 
the peculiar touch of the player, the personality of the 
player, the harmonies of the musical composition. All 
these qualities and impulses are transmitted by means of 
the air to the complex reagent, the expert listener, who 


38 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


selects and identifies the various elements—the make of 
the violin, the composition, the player, etc. And the 
expert listener can identify the various instruments and 
their unique contribution in symphonal orchestration. So 
the spectrum reveals the chemical elements with their 
properties and periodicity in distant stars. The electric 
current carries the living voice and will of the speaker 
over distances of hundreds of miles and communicates 
them in kind to the human instrument at the receiver; 
and this instrument is stimulated to a special type of ac- 
tion or inhibited in a special way. It responds to the logic 
as well as to the energy of the personality at the other end 
of the telephone, where physical, chemical, neural, and 
mental forms of energy with all their complexities con- 
tribute to the production of the impulse sent. If we sub- 
stitute our earth for the human individual, we must sup- 
pose that it communicates, whatever be the medium, in 
the impulses it sends out, the whole complexity of the 
energies of its constitution, with its order and movement, 
to be received selectively and in kind by such cosmic in- | 
struments as are prepared to receive them. And so recip- 
rocally does the earth receive the complex impulses which 
constitute the entire life in epitome of the vast array of 
celestial worlds which with our humble earth go to con- 
stitute the whole. Receives, but responds only to those 
energy forms for which its organization is prepared. There 
may be an indefinite number of higher levels to which we 
fail to respond for lack of proper organization—waiting 
for the appropriate conditions, as life and mind waited for 
such conditions. As mind or intelligence with us is fun- 
damentally social, a focus of mental interactions, so there 
may be in the cosmos a continuum of spiritual interac- 
tions of various levels of which we are ignorant or at best 
catch a glimpse in the intuitions of genius, in mystical 
communion, in the intimations of beauty and immortality. 
Thus the law of mutual aid holds in the cosmic economy. 
Cosmic genius points the way, sets the ideal for us, pitiable 
creatures of a day. 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 39 


There is no reason to suppose that, in the universe as 
a whole, all possible levels do not coexist. If our universe 
is a rhythmic whole, then it must exist at the top as well 
as at the bottom. In the system as a whole, each level is 
instrumental to the next level—the inorganic level to the 
organic, the organic to the mental, the mental to spiritual 
appreciation and communion. At the same time it is the 
higher level which communicates its order to the lower— 
the lower like a cosmic virgin being prepared through 
processes of growth which it cannot understand for the 
golden shower of Jupiter, the fructifying impulse of the 
higher level to which it responds in the fulness of time. 
The upward path which prevents each level from running 
down to dead unavailability is produced by the higher 
level which thus compensates for the downward trend and 
makes the whole a moving, living whole. The highest 
level of all regulates, orders, and runs up the lower levels 
as the artesian pressure at the top makes the water rise 
towards its source, or, to change the figure, as Maxwell’s 
omniscient demon selects and sorts the unequal velocities 
of the molecules, atoms, electrons, so as to make energy 
run up instead of down. We know that the genius of liv- 
ing matter thus winds up the energy of inorganic matter. 
In an infinite time and in an infinite universe, there is 
no reason why all the levels should not coexist and inter- 
act, though the torch of light of the higher levels is now 
carried by some, now by; others of the material worlds 
according as they are duly and truly prepared to act as its 
bearers, worthy and well qualified to be its incarnations, 
even as thought, in our human economy, is carried now by 
one set of cells, now by another, but thought itself is 
continuous. Our spectrum is too short to react upon the 
whole series of light waves; our human resonators are too 
limited to respond to but a small part of the world of 
tones, and so our mind is too limited to respond to but a 
limited part of the order of the whole with its unique 
ensembles of energies of all gradations. Perhaps future 
man, if the race does not commit suicide through blindness 


40 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


and fratricide, may be able to respond to harmonies that 
are hidden to us as we are able to respond to things un- 
dreamed of by Pithecanthropus. At any rate, we may be 
sure that somewhere such response exists. And the divinity 
of the future, of new orders of creativeness, is but the 
divinity eternally present, incarnating itself into new 
forms of matter according to a law of its own that we 
cannot fathom. Our little earth is but an island in the 
sea of being, surcharged and directed by the genius of the 
whole. 

One thing is certain: the real unit of reality is not our 
earth, nor even our solar system. There was a time when 
the individual took himself to be the unit of human life 
and ruled out everything except what ministered to his 
limited desires. We have advanced to the point where we 
regard the nation as the unit of human life, but still show 
a barbarous indifference, if not murderous hate, towards 
other nations. We know by tragic experience that our 
human universe is too narrow to make room for all the 
real human values. In the realm of nature we were for 
long geocentric; we have become, for some purposes, helio- 
centric. We must learn that the cosmos is the true unit 
of reality. It is true that astronomy has taught us that 
our earth has no independent existence. It is but a cinder 
from the sun, depending upon it for energy. And the 
sun is but a mediocre member in the society of worlds, a 
differentiation and concentration of the total stuff of the 
whole, and owes its energy to this. The spectroscope has 
taught us that elements and properties are universal. We 
know that light, radiant heat, and gravity are aspects of 
an electrical continuum in which all worlds float. We 
know that form or order is as universal as the space and 
time and energy in which it weaves its harmonies. Yet 
somehow we imagine that the evolution of our earth is a 
thing apart. We do not realize that its life is part of the 
rhythm of the whole; that, not only its energy, but its 
order and phases are what they are because of the 
space and time relations and the interactions within the 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 41 


rhythmic whole; that life and mind on our earth are as 
dependent upon this interaction as are our gravitational 
movements. Within the cosmic whole no part liveth unto 
itself nor dieth unto itself, but it lives and dies in obedi- 
ence to the life and order of the whole. Worlds, like in- 
dividuals, have their seasons of budding springtime, sum- 
mer bloom, multi-coloured autumn, and grey winter, but 
the cosmos has all seasons for its own. In the deathless 
rhythm of the universe the life-giving forms of each level 
of existence fly like winged messengers from system to 
system, the higher to the lower, to take effect on those 
that are prepared, as the moon’s silver rays stir the heart 
of youth to love and tender meditation. What science 
fails to realize is the spirit that moves over the deeps of 
seeming chaos, the divinity that streams like light through 
all, courses like life-blood through the whole, draws like 
an eternal magnet all to itself. 

What we find in the actual world are different levels of 
energy coexisting and interpenetrating in diverse degrees. 
This fact is independent of our ignorance of the modus 
operandi of these levels. The universe contains all that 
our earth reveals and more besides. It is the plus which 
makes motion, evolution, progress on our earth possible. 
We cannot refuse recognition to anything that makes itself 
known to us as having reality, be it electricity, matter, life, 
mind, spirit. There is no reason for regarding the higher 
levels in the universe as secondary to the lower. If our 
bias leads us to consider the lower levels as the sole reality, 
we come to an impasse even in accounting for their be- 
haviour. The reality we know is due somehow to inter- 
action within the cosmos. While the lower furnish the 
body or instrument to the higher, the latter furnish the 
vitalizing and orderly touch to the lower. They are thus 
interdependent. In regarding the lower as the conditions 
for the manifestations of the higher, we must remember 
that not only the complexity, but the duration and order 
of development must be taken into account. The condi- 
tions are cumulative. Moreover, the levels are eternal and 


42 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


constant. Without dogmatizing about the details of ex- 
change, we must hold to conservation, not only for the uni- 
verse as a whole, but for each level; for if there had been 
continuous encroachment of one level upon another, this 
process must have run its course in infinite time. There 
must, therefore, be compensations in the actions, reac- 
tions, and interactions of the various levels. 

Our universe must make room for all the diversities 
there are in the concrete world of experience, for the stupid 
and the brilliant, for the sane and the insane, for the good 
and the bad, for merry laughter and brooding melancholy, 
for the quick and the dead. And it must contain all facts 
in their unique significance and movement. It must con- 
tain streams of change, of indefinite diversity, with their 
respective elements and properties, and their discrete 
pulsations from the throbbing hearts of the cosmos, mul- 
tiple histories with their diverse paces, their intersections, 
their unique durations and significance, with their rela- 
tive constants making possible characterization and pre- 
diction. We also require limpid space as the playground 
of energies, for we must have distance to spread our stars, 
and we must have freedom of movement. And we must 
have consciousness, the neutral light universally present, 
variously coloured by energy patterns and, in some stages 
of complexity and intensity, by significance and value— 
the awareness and “enjoyment” of relations. And we must 
have order and law, else were the dance of energies the 
dizzy whirl of the insane. 

There is ample room for relativity in the interaction of 
the parts of such a world even though the order of the 
whole be eternal. There are not only the blazing spots 
moving through space at different rates. with their chang- 
ing perspectives of space-time and the curvature of light 
in the neighbourhood of gravitational fields, but every 
property, be it in the inorganic, organic or mental field, 
moves by its own velocity, its own retardation and ac- 
celeration, aside from the movement of the unique en- 
semble of which it is a part. When we deal with such 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 43 


complexes as personal histories, we must take account, not 
merely of the external stimuli with their character, veloc- 
ity, and interrelations, but also of the still more compli- 
cated physiological organism which is the immediate con- 
dition of mental processes. The mental processes them- 
selves constitute a highly complicated ensemble, where we 
must take account not merely of the general movement 
with its duration and order, but also of the several move- 
ments of the constituent processes with their unique char- 
acter, duration, and interrelations. There should, then, 
be sufficient opportunity for the exercise of the ingenuity 
of the most venturesome mathematician, a sufficient basis 
for all the dimensions that he can desire in even a super- 
ficial description of the universe. This, moreover, does 
not take account of the creative passing of nature, the real 
future, which must necessarily lie outside the methods of 
science. We cannot predict the next creative step. We 
can know only in retrospect, when the step is an accom- 
plished fact. So the cosmic dance whirls on. All are in 
the dance, from the largest sun to the smallest electrons, 
in all sorts of gyrations, the leaders ever shifting, as in a 
Virginia reel. Only the order, properties, and levels are 
eternal. 

There must, then, be an eternal hierarchy of levels in 
the universe. Law and order on the lower levels are due 
to an interpenetration by the higher levels, even before 
these can become effective in unique and concrete forms, 
expressive of their own true character. Such expressions 
must wait for the proper conditions and the proper stage 
of development. These levels, with their various types 
of organization, are not mere abstract forms, as Plato's 
Ideas, but energy patterns, existing in the concrete and 
effective in the concrete. The physical bearers or incar- 
nations of this hierarchy of levels vary from time to time. 
The hot spots of conscious intelligence shift, but the genius 
of the whole remains the same, ever operative from the 
highest level to the lowest and back again. In infinite 
time the standard of realization must somehow be eternal. 


44 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


The perfection we seek must, therefore, exist, energizing 
and inspiring those that can respond. Plato’s mistake lies 
in regarding reality as pure static forms and in discrediting 
the world of matter and motion as phenomenal. But, in 
such a world, form hangs frozen in the empyrean and re- 
mains ineffective, while the concrete world becomes 
chaotic. The real world is a flowing world, with such 
order and constancy as make prediction to a degree pos- 
sible. But is there evolution in the whole? There ob- 
viously cannot be the evolution of new levels, for then 
we should have the whole problem of something coming 
from nothing. But if time is real and duration is real, 
then there must be enrichment within the process, and 
the process as a whole cannot be regarded as merely 
circular, as the ancients thought; but must be regarded 
rather as a spiral, like the recurrent octaves in the musical 
scale or the recurrent melody in the symphony, with the 
opportunity of creating ever new symphonies. Out of 
some eighty elements the chemist can create an indefinite 
number of compounds. Out of a few thousand tones 
musical genius can create an indefinite number of tonal 
harmonies. What cannot the genius of the universe create 
with its endless variety of material, world without end? 

There remains the problem of evil. Obviously no theory 
of the universe can make the amount of evil in the world 
less than it actually is, but it can show the place of evil 
in the whole. We have seen that the world as we know 
it is a pluralistic world of multiple energy patterns, his- 
tories, and levels. Evil must show itself in the relation 
of energy patterns to each other and the whole. It is 
part of the problem of adaptation. Now each energy 
pattern adapts itself to, or rather appropriates, new energy 
patterns, by a trial and error process. This is as true on 
the lowest level as on the highest level of existence. In 
every such tentative experimentation, whether on the in- 
organic, organic, or mental levels, or in their relation to 
each other, illusion and error are possible. It is in the 
realm of thinking and volition that we are best acquainted 


INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 45 


with such experimentation, but they are equally real in 
the other realms of reality. It is of interest that while 
the Hebrews thought of evil as sin and the Greeks thought 
of it as error, the Hebrew word for sin and the Greek word 
for error alike mean missing the mark. We know better 
than they could know that the target is a moving target, 
that we are moving as groups and individuals in divergent 
lines from each other and the target. But the target must 
become a common target in order to be effective. The 
wonder is how we can help missing it. If the universe with 
its various movements and paces were a world of chance, 
we could never hope for adaptation; and adjustment, 
goodness, harmony would be words unknown. But even 
in a world orderly on the whole there is abundant oppor- 
tunity for conflict. The conflicts arising may be internal 
conflicts owing to defective organization—to lack of adap- 
tation within the complexity of the energy patterns which 
go to constitute the individual in question—or may be 
external conflicts due to external relations. In either case 
there will be groping and error, with eventual success or 
elimination as a result of the selective process. The adap- 
tation, moreover, 1s never completed in the changing com- 
plexities of the universe, and therefore, the process of trial 
and error is never finished. There is thus a certain blind- 
ness and relativity implied in the very nature of adjust- 
ment within;:a complex changing world. This is what 
makes the tragedy but also the zest of existence. History 
is not the mere dialectic staging of forms of thought. 
Thought itself is relative to history in the concrete, to 
the infinitely complex movements of an order greater than 
itself. But in the words of the ancient Xenophanes: “By 
seeking we can find out better,” or at any rate the race 
can learn through our failures. At best our understanding 
is relative and limited. The historian selects according to 
his bias or the bias of the Weltgeist, and becomes an op- 
timist or pessimist. But the optimism of one may be the 
pessimism of the other. The striving for economic equal- 
ity fills the conservative with foreboding and the radical 


46 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


with hope. But only the genius of the universe knows the 
full meaning of it all. 

The universe must be regarded as a vast symphony with 
the orchestral instrumentation of worlds. It is our souls 
that are dead and irresponsive. We need to awaken with 
Siegfried to the meaning of the song of birds, the myriad- 
voiced murmur of the forest, the portent of the north wind 
making ghostly music in the pines, and the soothing south 
wind carrying love and languor to the heart, the buds of 
spring suggesting dreams of love, harbingers of the ever- 
lasting cycle of awakening nature, the buzzy hum of bees 
in summer fields, the yellow leaves of autumn, with the 
shadow of sadness of approaching death—death which is 
but the preparation for a new cycle of life, the rhythm 
of anabolism and catabolism, the systole and diastole of 
nature’s heart. Could we but feel and understand this 
cycle, we should understand the meaning of the whole. 
In this cosmic symphony there are the dominant theme 
and the subsidiary themes—the dominant carried by the 
worlds which embody for the time being the highest levels 
of reality, the subsidiary themes carried by worlds in in- 
termediate stages of development down to the lowest, all 
with varying cadences and each with a movement and 
figure of its own, but each reinforcing by its unique qual- 
ity the melody and harmony of the whole, with realistic 
interlacing of themes, with recapitulation, by various 
groups of instruments, of the main theme, with relief and 
contrast, with movements in dur and moll subsiding to 
pianissimo and rising to their characteristic crescendo, 
forms interblending like a delicate pastel drawing, with 
varying orchestral tinting, but all parts of the effective 
synchronization of the whole, discords of drums and 
cymbals somehow drowned and fused in the harmony of 
the victorious movement, rising in spiral periodicity in 
infinite time, with wholes embodied in larger wholes, but 
the harmony of the prevailing theme and of the whole 
eternal. 


OETA A Ei Ue 
EVOLUTION AS CREATIVE ADAPTATION 


The Tragedy of Science 


“NotTHINnG happens without a reason.” Thus spoke the 
ancient Leucippus, father of atomism, perhaps the most 
momentous hypothesis in the history of science. It is the 
province of science to make our experience reasonable, 
and philosophy is merely a more persistent attempt in 
the same direction. But while science has insisted that 
material effects must have adequate material causes, it 
has not been equally ready to admit that spiritual effects 
must have adequate spiritual causes. Science has felt 
satisfied when it has taken account of the mechanical 
aspect of the world with its quantitative categories. But 
the organization of reality is as real as its quantity, 
changes in form are as real as changes in motion. And 
in the last analysis they are inseparable. Science has been 
the victim of vicious bifureation. It has dealt with ab- 
stractions. And it is helpless to piece together its disjecta 
membra. The intellectual chaos which confronts our con- 
fused thinking is only equalled by the moral chaos in 
which we find ourselves. We have come to separate man 
from the cosmos, and the instincts and faculties of man 
from his environment. Hence the tragedy of a philosophy 
which views man and his ideals as an accident within the 
universe in which he lives and moves and has his being. 

The tragic outcome of the materialistic drift of modern 
civilization has been eloquently expressed by one of its 
brilliant representatives, Bertrand Russell: 


That Man is the product. of causes which had no 
prevision of the end they were achieving; that his 
origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and 

47 


48 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental colloca- 
tions of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity 
of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life 
beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all 
the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noon-day 
brightness of human genius, are destined to extinc- 
tion in the vast death of the solar system, and that the 
whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably 
be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins— 
all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so 
nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them 
can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of 
these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyield- 
ing despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be 
safely built.* 


What prospect does such a philosophy offer for man’s 
striving? What setting can it give to man’s ideals? 


How, in such an alien and inhuman world can so 
powerless a creature aS man preserve his aspirations 
untarnished? A strange mystery it is that Nature, 
omnipotent but blind, in the revolutions of her secu- 
lar hurryings through the abysses of space, has 
brought forth at last a child, subject still to her power, 
but gifted with sight, with knowledge of good and 
evil, with the capacity of judging all the works of his 
unthinking Mother. In spite of Death, the mark and 
seal of the parental control, Man is yet free during 
his brief years, to examine, to criticize, to know, and 
in imagination to create. To him alone in the world 
with which he is acquainted this freedom belongs; 
and in this lies his superiority to the resistless forces 
which control his outward life.’ 

Such a situation is indeed paradoxical. But perhaps 
the paradox lies rather in man’s superficial thinking, than 
in the cosmos that brought him forth. Have we not for- 


; Taig. and Logic, pp. 47, 48. 
? Ibid., 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 49 


gotten the fundamental postulate of science, as old as 
Leucippus, viz., that nothing happens without a reason? 
Materialism has substituted magic for sober thought. The 
whole process of evolution becomes a succession of mira- 
cles without intelligible ground in the process. The 
appearance in a world of chance of any order at all, the 
emergence of life, with its series of forms and organs, the 
final appearance of intelligence and a sense of beauty—all 
are miracles. The materialistic scientist has a truly mar- 
vellous appetite for the miraculous. So long as the scien- 
tist merely gives a descriptive account of the series of 
forms and stages in the history of our earth, we can find 
no fault with him. But when he essays to deal with 
causes, we have a right to demand that his account shall 
be reasonable. When he boasts of explanation, we do not 
expect to be offered magic. Materialism offers the most 
astounding instance of credulity in history. And when 
its motley brood of nasty and cheap philosophies pretend 
to a monopoly of scientific method, it must make Olympus 
shake with laughter. 

A generation ago there were scientists who hesitated 
to make chance the arbiter of the whole history of evolu- 
tion. They would make an exception of man. Wallace 
felt that a “divine influx” is necessary in order to account 
for the appearance of man. But what about the various 
steps in creative evolution leading up to man? Can they 
be accounted for as accidental variation and natural selec- 
tion? Evolutionists were no doubt right that if these can 
be accounted for by chance, then man can be no excep- 
tion. Man, too, emerges by gradual steps from simpler 
forms. But what about evolution as a whole? Can our 
parochial geocentric point of view account for the emer- 
gence of the series of new characters and forms culminat- 
ing in man as we know him? I hold that the earth must 
not be conceived merely as a chaos of disordered motions 
evolving in isolation, but must be conceived as part of a 
larger whole. The history of the earth can be understood 
only as a space-time creative adaptation to a system of 


50 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


cosmic control. The cosmos in whose womb our earth 
is begotten, and within whose control it lives its life 
cycle, is adequate to account for the evolution and nature 
of its offspring. 


The Vicious Bifurcation 

It is our besetting sin of bifurcation which is respon- 
sible for most, if not all, of our absurd paradoxes in science 
and philosophy. Weabstract man from nature, mind from 
body, the qualities from the thing, the individual from 
his environment, the earth from the cosmos, and then 
land in absurdities. We become victims of language—of 
conjunctions and prepositions. Language tends to sepa- 
rate what in reality 1s inseparable. When we say man 
and nature, heredity and environment, we separate what 
reality has joined together. We try to understand the 
parts without the matrix, while it is only in their specific 
matrix that their functions can exist and be understood. 
The history of thought describes a zigzag between the 
poles of our false dichotomy. By emphasizing now hered- 
ity, now environment; now mind, now body; now the 
individual, now society; now the particular, now the uni- 
versal; now pluralism, now monism, the history of thought 
tries to compensate for its artificial bifurcations. But the 
oscillation is fruitless of results, because the abstractions 
cannot function as abstractions and therefore cannot be 
understood as abstractions. 

The false antithesis can be illustrated in the customary 
bifurcation of heredity and environment in the life cycle 
of the organism. I can do no better than quote Dr. 
Sumner: 


The sum-total of causal agencies which result in the 
production of a complete organism from a fertilized 
ovum are commonly grouped under two heads: (a) 
the material constitution of the fertilized ovum itself, 
particularly of its chromosomes; and (b) external 
influences which act upon the developing organism, 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 51 


from the moment of fertilization to the close of the 
life cycle. This classification corresponds in the main 
to the familiar antithesis between heredity and en- 
vironment, nature and nurture. As a matter of fact, 
the distinction thus drawn is largely a chronological 
one, the influences acting before fertilization being 
lumped together along with “nature,” those acting 
after that event being assigned to “nurture.” If we 
insist that heredity relates only to the “intrinsic” 
factors in the situation—to the material constitution 
of the “germ-plasm” independent of environmental 
influence at any period—it seems to me we are deal- 
ing with something purely imaginary. There never 
is a period in the history of the germ-cells or their 
forerunners when they are not vitally dependent upon 
their living environment. Every step in their history 
involves an interaction between certain factors which 
may be called “intrinsic” and other factors which are 
external to these. What is “intrinsic” at one moment 
may have been “extrinsic” the moment before.” 


The distinction between heredity and environment must 
be regarded as one of practical convenience, not as an 
absolute one. I agree with Dr. Summer’s “somewhat para- 
doxical thesis that the organism and its environment con- 
stitute an inseparable whole; that if we could detach all 
environmental elements from this complex, there would 


be no organism left.” * 


The tendency has been to look upon the life stream in 
too abstract a fashion. We must take account of the whole 
milieu in which the organism develops and of which it is 
@ part. 


At all stages of ontogeny the course of develop- 
ment may be altered by extrinsic stimuli but earlier 
$“The Organism and its Environment,” Dr. Francis B. Sumner, the 


Scientific Bee Vola Xty.) pps 280, 231; 
bids Pp; 


52 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


stages may be more profoundly influenced than later 
ones.” 


Throughout the process of development from the egg, we 
must take account of relations of exchange and control 
from the more inclusive system of energy. This can be 
experimentally shown in the case of the simpler organisms. 


If the usual medium in which the egg develops— 
sea water, say—is modified by changing its physical 
character (density), or its chemical composition, 
then this change in environment produces a 
structural change in the character of the embryo, 
or larva, into which the egg develops. In a 
word, the experiments of the students of Ent- 
wicklungs-Mechanik show that while there are 
strong intrinsic influences in the egg, which guide its 
development under usual or normal environmental 
conditions along a definite path, yet any sufficient 
modification of the extrinsic conditions (environ- 
ment) affecting the developing egg or embryo can 
change this path and produce a modified individual.” 


While, on the whole, the so-called hereditary traits 
show a considerable permanence, it must not be forgotten 
that the seeming permanence of the hereditary constitu- 
tion presupposes a permanence in the conditions of the 
environment. If Alpine plants change their characteristics 
when transported to the lowlands and become like their 
lowland kin, this does not show merely that heredity is 
permanent and only temporarily modified by environment, 
but rather that the characteristics of these plants are a 
function of both heredity and environment. Again, if 
cyclopean monsters can be produced by Stockard and 
others through using a medium of magnesium solutions 
or other means, this does not show that the fish and other 
animals used for the experiment are absolutely symmetri- 

5H. G. Conklin, Heredity and Environment, 2nd Ed., p. 342. 


* Vernon Kellogg, “Heredity and Environment,” the Atlantic Monthly, 
June, 1922, p. 7381. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 53 


cally two-eyed and only abnormally develop into one- 
eyed monsters, but it shows that the development of sym- 
metrical eyes is in part a function of the usual medium 
in which such animals develop. 

The life cycle of the individual is the result of a delicate 
equilibrium involving not merely the germ plasm, but its 
relation to the internal system of body cells and to the 
external system of energies. Radical changes in any of 
these systems will affect the characteristics of the indi- 
vidual. Changes in the external system of energies in 
the way of pressure, temperature, chemical composition, 
and the still more subtle medium of electromagnetic 
waves will affect the character of the organism. The arti- 
ficial treatment of spermatozoa before a fertilization by 
means of X-rays, radium rays, etc., has produced various 
monstrosities. The influences are especially potent dur- 
ing the period of maturation and in the earlier stages of 
development, but throughout the life history of the indi- 
vidual external influences are potent. ‘This is especially 
true of the human individual on account of the long period 
of plasticity after birth, when the external milieu is potent 
to shape his characteristics. Hence the importance of edu- 
cation in the broad sense of the social influences brought 
to bear upon the human individual in childhood and 
adolescence. We have come to mistrust the theory of 
faculties and instincts as abstracted from the environment 
and conceived as absolute characters of the individual. 

Neither can the internal system of cells and their mutual 
control be ignored if we would understand the develop- 
mental series. A classic experiment on frogs’ eggs shows 
that if one of the daughter cells into which the egg first 
divides is killed and the dead part is left attached, the 
other cell will produce a half-frog embryo. If, on the 
other hand, the two cells are separated entirely, the re- 
maining cell will develop into a whole-frog embryo of 
approximately half the size. Recently we have learned 
that various chemical messengers, the hormones, com- 
municated to the blood by certain ductless glands such 


54 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


as the thyroid and parathyroid and other glands pro- 
foundly influence the proportion and rate of growth of 
the organism. Electro-vital messengers from the nervous 
system in a similar fashion not only serve to knit the 
organism together into an executive system but to control 
growth. The whole internal economy is thus knit to- 
gether by distance action, chemical and vito-electrical. 
We cannot afford to ignore the interaction of the various 
parts in the development of the cell into the organism. 
While we cannot say that the fate of any part of the egg 
or any cleavage cell is “a function of its position” as 
Driesch holds, neither can we afford to ignore relations. 
It has been shown that, within the economy of the whole 
and under stable conditions, certain specific tissues or 
organs of the later developed embryo have their origin 
from specific single cells in the four—or eight—or sixteen- 
cell stage of the developing egg. ‘To this extent there is 
preformation, but it 1s a preformation which is a function 
of the total ensemble. 

Again, the factors which enter into fertilization consti- 
tute an exceedingly complex system and each makes its 
unique contribution within the economy of the total life 
system. 


The fact remains that at the time of fertilization 
the hereditary potencies of the two germ cells are not 
equal, the polarity, symmetry, type of cleavage, and 
the pattern, or relative positions and proportions of 
future organs, being foreshadowed in the cytoplasm 
of the egg cell, while only the differentiations of later 
development are influenced by the sperm. In short, 
the egg cytoplasm determines the early development 
and the egg nuclei control only later differentiations. 
We are vertebrates because our mothers were verte- 
brates and produced eggs of the vertebrate pattern, 
but the color of our skin, hair and eyes, our sex, 
stature, and mental peculiarities were determined by 
the sperm as well as the egg from which we came. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 55 


There is evidence that the chromosomes of the egg 
and sperm are the seat of differential factors or de- 
terminers for Mendelian characters, but the general 
polarity, symmetry and pattern of the embryo are 
egg characters which were determined before fertiliza- 
tion.’ 


At any rate we can be sure that the egg and sperm cells 
in sexual reproduction constitute an immensely complex 
system of determinants where each makes its unique con- 
tribution, even though we cannot separate this contribu- 
tion from the total ensemble. We know that all these 
characters, including sex, are subject to variation in the 
total energy setting. 

What I have tried to emphasize is that the life cycle 
of an individual organism must be understood as a fune- 
tion of three systems of energy factors in delicate equilib- 
rium within themselves and in relation to one another. 
The reproductive cells which carry on the life stream can- 
not exist in isolation nor can they be ascribed characters 
in isolation. The character of the individual organism is 
the result of the delicate balance and interaction of the 
heredity cells with the body cells and with the total ex- 
ternal environment. The constancy of traits depends upon 
constancy in these systems. On the other hand, variation 
of any of these systems may lead to variation of traits. 
The constancy of what we call heredity in the gross is as 
truly a function of the constancy of the total external 
environment as it is of the heredity cells. It 1s not. my 
purpose to minimize the importance of the heredity cells. 
In the same external environment, human beings bring 
forth human beings and apes produce apes. Species have 
a considerable constancy over long periods of time. And 
it is also a well-known fact that stock counts, 7.e., the 
individual tends to resemble his ancestors in recognizable 
traits. But it must not, therefore, be forgotten that 
hereditary traits are the result of energy exchange with 


7H. G. Conklin, Heredity and Environment, 2nd Ed., pp. 184, 185. 


56 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the environment and that their constancy and variation 
cannot be understood apart from the larger milieu.’ 

If we now pass from ontogeny, the individual life cycle, 
to phylogeny, the cycle of generations, we have the prob- 
lem, on the one hand, of accounting for the constancy 
of traits, and, on the other hand, of accounting for new 
characters and species. Biology cannot be said to have been 
successful in accounting for either of these satisfactorily ; 
and scepticism has broken out among the biologists them- 
selves. The Darwinian theory has slid over both by means 
of its magic formula of chance variations and natural 
selection. Darwin himself found it necessary to invoke 
other factors, such as the Lamarckian conception of the 
inheritance of acquired characters, but the inheritance of 
such characters in the Lamarckian sense, 2.e., as a result 
of function, seems at best doubtful and has been dis- 
carded by Darwin’s more orthodox followers. It is im- 


®* The feeling that “the science of genetics has, in the past, suffered 
from too narrow a point of view,” has been expressed recently by so 
distinguished an authority as Dr. Charles B. Davenport: “No physiologist 
can fail to recognize that all development is under the control of agencies 
external to the developing center. In the earliest stages of development, 
indeed, the processes of differentiation seem to have a remarkable inde- 
pendence of environment. Even though the organism be turned inside out, 
as in the case of the lithium larve of sea urchins produced by Herbst 
many years ago, still the spicules and other differentiating characters 
will be laid down in nearly normal fashion. But every student of plant 
genetics knows that the final form is dependent upon conditions of 
nutrition, temperature and the like, and students of human development 
are aware of the influence which the nervous system exerts upon the 
production of hormones. This nervous system is, of course, the organic 
complex which is most directly affected by external conditions and 
the production of hormones which has so marked an influence upon 
development. What is true in later stages is, no doubt, true in still 
earlier ones and thus one can see the basis for the conviction which 
has for a long time been held by thoughtful medical men that various 
kinds of shocks, or poisons introduced into the body, affect the develop- 
ment of the foetus. The striking cases of resemblance in close relatives 
and especially in identical twins occur where conditions of life are nearly 
uniform in the developmental period. Where these conditions affect 
differently the individuals with the same germ plasm the end result is a 
morphological difference. The student of genetics must take into account, 
therefore, chromosomes, hormones, other developmental impulses and 
environmental conditions if he would know all the factors that determine 
development.” The Scientific Monthly, Vol. XX, pp. 497, 498. Dr. 
Davenport’s article came out after this chapter was written, but I could 
not refrain from quoting his excellent summary of the case. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 57 


possible here to enumerate all the difficulties which beset 
the Darwinian theory. We can mention only a few. In 
the first place, the idea that the variations happen by 
chance is contradicted by the evidence of paleontology 
which shows that the process of evolution has been on the 
whole more orderly than chance could explain. Many 
life series, at any rate, show a comparatively steady direc- 
tion toward useful adaptation.® And the process as a 
whole has fewer blind alleys than chance would indicate. 
It is incredible that the system of such a complex organ 
as the human eye should have developed by chance with- 
out reference to environmental control. Large variations, 
such as the recent mutation theory emphasizes, would 
complicate the problem, rather than simplify it. The 
factors involved in such an adjustment are practically 
innumerable; and it is inconceivable that the variation of 
one factor should coincide by chance with the variation 
of all the other factors so as to produce one common 
direction tending towards a specific adaptation. 

While to Darwin the possibility of variation seemed 
practically infinite, we know now that most of the varia- 
tions are fluctuations due to the interaction of causes 
within the life cycle of the individual and are not in- 
herited. The range of the inheritable variations would 
be comparatively small and quite insufficient to furnish 
the material for the evolutionary process on the Darwinian 
theory. Nor does the theory furnish any explanation of 
why some variations are inherited and others not. To 
call the latter mutations and the former fluctuations is a 
matter of words and does not explain. It is not necessary, 
moreover, that variations should be useful, if they ever 
could be useful by chance, in order to survive. It is only 
necessary that they should not be such as to make survival 
impossible. Many of the variations are merely negative, 
i.e., they consist in subtraction of characters rather than 


° This has been experimentally proved by Professor R. R. Gates and 
other biologists. See The Mutation Factor in Evolution with Particular 
Reference to Ginothera, London, 1915. 


58 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


addition. Many variations, such as various markings, 
cannot be shown to have any relation to survival. Other 
variations, such as blindness, while disadvantageous, may 
not cause the disappearance of the organisms in question. 
They may mean survival in a different habitat where 
eyes do not count. They may mean bad adaptation to 
survival in a certain habitat, but not sufficiently bad to 
eliminate the species because of its enormous fecundity 
and other compensations. . The cumulation of variations, 
therefore, is not determined by usefulness; and even varia- 
tions which result in useful adaptation, after they have 
reached a certain cumulative growth, cannot be useful in 
the long ages during which the cumulation is brought 
about. 

The principle of natural selection is indeed an important 
contribution to biology. But it is a negative, not an 
architectonic, principle. It does not explain why varia- 
tions appear, why they cumulate, why they assume an 
organization in the way of more successful adaptation. 
Organisms must, of course, be able to maintain themselves 
in their life environment and in the physical environment, 
in order to leave descendants and determine the character 
of the race. But that is all natural selection tells us. It 
does not explain the traits and organization of organisms © 
nor why they become well or badly adapted to their 
specific environment. 

The Mendelian conception of life is essentially atomic. 
It holds that the stream of life consists of certain unit 
characters which are capable of being combined and seg- 
regated in certain predictable ways. It emphasizes the 
fact that different characters are capable of travelling with 
an individual velocity and therefore can vary mdepend- 
ently of the variation of other characters. The char- 
acters themselves are conceived as constant in the germ 
plasm, and waiting to be segregated. They may for the 
time being exist in a blend where they may be dominant 
or suppressed—the long-character by the short-character, 
one eye colour by another, smoothness by hairiness, etc.; 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 59 


but the tendency is for characters to run pure eventually; 
and by artificial selection we can vastly hasten this process. 
The characters themselves are conceived as invariant in 
the germ plasm except for mutations that may occur now 
and then, and which in Darwinian fashion are conceived 
as spontaneous, 2.e., Independent of the body changes and 
the external environment. No account is given of the 
origin of these mutations. They are accepted as facts. 
But, given mutations, we can produce new species by 
breeding pure. On this score Mendelism is subject to all the 
objections we have previously raised against chance varia- 
tion. It is easy to say that, considering the multitude 
of factors involved in heredity, new syntheses may be 
produced from these characters. But no control is provided 
for their production. Granting that they might be pro- 
duced, why should they stick? Why should they not, like 
other blends, be subject to segregation? The experimental 
evidence of mutation seems to be mostly concerned with 
loss of characters—lack of wings, defective eyes or lack 
of eyes, etc. But what accounts for the privation? And 
how could the series of new species and new organs for 
adaptation arise from lack of characters? Some geneticists 
are becoming sceptical of accounting for evolution along 
this line, and such a distinguished pioneer as Professor 
Bateson has come to the conclusion that “we have no 
reason to assume that any accumulations of characters of 
the same order [1.e., “transferable” or segregating ones] 
would culminate in the production of distinct species.” *° 

Mendelism, in brief, is a theory of the shuffling and re- 
shuffling of certain original characters which have no rela- 
tion to the nature of the environment or the changes of 
the environment. It does not attempt to account for the 
origin of these characters; and their organization into 
unique ensembles which happen to be adapted to life 
eonditions is unintelligible on this theory. But can we go 
indefinitely far back in the history of these characters? 
Are all human traits present in the primates and the char- 

1° Science, January 20, 1922, quoted by Dr. Sumner. 


60 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


acteristics of these in the mammals that preceded them, 
and the characteristics of these in their reptile ancestors 
and so on, back to the prevertebrates, the worms, the uni- 
cellular animals, and the spores? Finally, does matter 
possess the characters of the ancestral protoplasm? Or 
shall we simply say that chance has produced them by 
creative synthesis? ‘The theory makes evolution absurd 
and it is no wonder that at least one distinguished geneti- 
cist has thrown Darwinism overboard.** That is more 
honest than the attempt to cover up the contradiction 
between the point of view of original characters and the 
theory of the evolution of characters by emergence or 
creative synthesis from earlier ones. This destroys the 
fundamental conception of unit characters. And it offers 
no explanation of how new characters could emerge and 
assume new and adaptive organization—all in independ- 
ence of the environment. 

The vitalists have been well-intentioned in trying to 
combat materialism, but the solution which vitalism pro- 
poses is illusory. Vitalism is in the same plight as Men- 
delism. Like Mendelism it is fundamentally atomistic. 
The determinants of the life process, phylogenetic and 
ontogenetic, would have to be present from the beginning. 
They would have to be independent of the environment 
and the course of geological evolution. They would have 
to account for reversals in evolution as well as continuous 
evolution. They would have to be latent for vast geo- 
logic ages. It does not matter for our purpose whether 
vitalism is stated in terms of entelechies—life-forms, which 
are supposed to be immanent in the process and to guide 
the various phases of racial and individual development— 
or in terms of an original vital impulse which splits into 
its component impulses in acting upon matter. In either 
case the emergence of characters and the organization of 
characters remain to be explained. If the characters are 
all present from the beginning, what accounts for their 
gradual emergence in geologic time? If their organization 

11 Heribert Nilsson, Festskrift, Lund University, 1918. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 61 


is independent of the environment, how account for the 
adaptiveness of this organization to the characteristics of 
the environment? It may simplify matters to start with 
a vital impulse and so avoid the necessity of accounting 
for the origin of life. But can we ignore the relation of 
the vital impulse to the previous stages of geological evo- 
lution? Geology and astronomy make it clear that there 
was a stage in the development of our planet when life 
did not exist and could not exist. Where did the entele- 
chies or the inherent potencies of the vital impulse come 
from? To deny with Bergson the reality of matter and 
make it the mere appearance of the downward trend of 
life is mere mysticism. If matter is not real, how could 
it serve as the resistance against which the vital impulse 
breaks up like a sky-rocket into its inherent complexity, 
with progressive adaptation and reversal of function to 
fit a changing environment? That any age should take 
_ seriously such an incoherent mixture of mysticism and 
science is evidence of nothing so much as a want of logical 
thinking. 

The theories of evolution which are based upon the 
bifurcation of nature into an environment, on the one 
hand, and a life stream independent of it, on the other, 
all land us in absurdities. They fail to account for evo- 
lution as we know it. But evidence seems to indicate 
that the “germ-plasm” is not so isolated as Weismann sup- 
posed. It is admitted that the germ-plasm is continuous 
with the organism in the circulation of the blood. Egg 
cells and sperm cells and their combination, the oosperms, 
cannot exist without nourishment. But the blood is a 
more complex energy-system than Weismann supposed. 
It transmits the chemical messengers from the various 
ductless glands. It alters with mental excitement as has 
been shown definitely in the case of intense emotions. 
Anger and fear, through their action upon the adrenal 
eland, stimulate the production of sugar in the blood and 
alter profoundly its energy. Evidently the blood is not 
indifferent to the psychological situation. Perhaps Emped- 


62 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


ocles was not so far wrong when he conceived the blood 
as the seat of the soul! In any case, the heredity factors 
cannot be regarded as completely isolated from the chem- 
ical and vito-electric conditions of the organism. Hnergies, 
communicated through the blood, may certainly change 
the life history of the next generation, as shown in alco- 
holism and other effects of drugs; and through induction, 
2.€., being carried in the blood of the new individual, toxins 
may influence the fate of later generations. There is some 
evidence that changes in the energy system of the blood 
may lead to permanent modifications. 


One of the most interesting and convincing cases 
of the inheritance of an experimentally induced char- 
acter has been reported by Guyer and Smith with 
respect’ to certain eye defects in rabbits. They 
injected the pulped lenses of rabbits into fowls and, 
after the fowls had become sensitized to this foreign 
protein by the formation of anti-lens substances, their 
serum was injected into pregnant female rabbits. The 
effects on the injected rabbits were severe and many 
of them died, but there was no evidence that their 
eyes or lenses suffered injury; furthermore there was 
no evidence of any specific injury to their ovarian 
eggs, since in subsequent breeding they produced 
no young with eye defects. On the other hand, some of 
the embryo in utero did suffer specific injury; some 
were born with opaque lenses; sometimes their lenses 
were reduced in size, and when the lens was small, 
the whole eye was usually small; sometimes the eye- 
ball had collapsed leaving no traces of pupil or iris; 
finally these changes frequently increased and pro-— 
gressed after birth.”” 


Such eye defects have been proved to be inherited for 
at least five generations, and instead of decreasing have 
become more pronounced in successive generations; they 
are inherited through the male as well as the female and 

12%. G. Conklin, Heredity and Environment, 5th Ed., pp. 247, 248. 


_ EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 63 


are therefore not merely induced through the cytoplasm, 
the protoplasmic envelop of the nucleus of the egg. The 
authors of the experiment suggest “that the degenerating 
eyes are themselves directly or indirectly originating anti- 
bodies or other chemical substances in the blood serum of 
their bearers which in turn affect the germ cells.” ** At 
any rate, the fact that the germ cells are accessible through 
the blood opens a large door. We know also, what Weis- 
mann did not dream, that the germ cells, and every other 
part of the organism, are accessible to outside energies 
such as radium rays, X-rays, and other wave lengths which 
pass through the various structures of the body without 
hindrance. We know that the germ cells can be pro- 
foundly altered by artificial treatment with such waves. 
The action of such energies and their variation within the 
total matrix of nature, of which the germ cells are a part, 
must influence in an important way the life history of 
these cells. Altogether it does not seem so remarkable 
that there should be variation in the basis of heredity as 
that there should be as much constancy as we find. This 
constancy is no doubt in a measure due to the inertia of 
the heredity factors, but in the last analysis it 1s due to 
the relative constancy of the environment over periods of 
time and the equilibrium of the external and internal 
energies. 

If we envisage the process of evolution from the per- 
spective of geological history, we find that epochs of revo- 
lutionary changes of the earth’s crust with the accompany- 
ing changes of temperature, moisture and electromagnetic 
conditions have been equally revolutionary in the changes 
of life forms. ‘This seems natural enough if we remember 
that life is a development of the crust of the earth under 
the nurture and control of cosmic influences. It goes to 
show that in order to understand the evolution of life we 
must understand it as an integral aspect of the evolution 
of the earth; and we must understand the evolution of 
the earth as part of cosmic evolution with its phases and 

28 Quoted by Conklin, J bid., p. 248. 


64 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


its dynamic equilibrium. The paleontological record is 
necessarily incomplete, since there must be hard parts be- 
fore there can be any direct record. The earliest life forms 
can only be known indirectly as agencies in the formations 
of the earth’s crust. 

The geologist sees the history of the earth as a series 
of great rhythms including minor rhythms. Contractions 
of the earth’s crust giving rise to great elevations, accom- 
panied by aridity and cold, have alternated with periods 
of wearing down of the crust to a comparatively uniform 
level with great humidity and more uniform temperature. 
Just as we observe that in periods of the breaking of the 
crust of custom under severe strain and conflict, new social 
forms appear rapidly while many of the old forms disap- 
pear, so we find in the larger history of the earth that 
periods of the breaking of the earth’s crust are periods 
of great plasticity and great creative syntheses when new 
life forms emerge rapidly while many old forms disappear, 
the evolutionary process moving with greatly increased ac- 
celeration. Thus the Palzozoic era is ushered in with 
the Grand Canyon upheaval and accompanying climatic 
changes, when it is supposed that vertebrate life first made 
its appearance. With the rhythmic contractions which led 
up to the high Appalachian level we have the closing of 
the Paleozoic era, the age of reptiles, and the ushering in 
of the Mesozoic with the evolution of birds and mammals 
and the flourishing of the mighty dinosaurs. The Lara- 
mide level of the earth’s crust marks the disappearance of 
the dinosaurs and the end of the Mesozoic era, and ushers 
in the Cenozoic with a great development of mammal life 
including the primates, man’s direct ancestors. With the 
rhythmic rising of the crust in the Pleistocene period, and 
the accompanying climatic changes, we can watch man in 
the making, starting to reshape his environment; and in 
the throes of the last glacial epoch of the Pleistocene, 
Homo sapiens, the direct progenitor of historic man, the 
ereat destroyer and builder, the creator of art and civiliza- 
tion, appears. On the crest of the Cascadian crust with 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 65 


its rhythms and tremors and tensions we now live, or, 
more exactly, we are part of it; and the end is not yet. 


Thus time has wrought great changes in earth and 
sea, and these changes, acting directly or through 
climate, have always found somewhere in the unend- 
ing chain of living beings certain groups whose plas- 
ticity permitted their adaptation to the newly aris- 
ing conditions. The great heart of nature beats, its 
throbbing stimulates the pulse of life, and not until 
that heart is stilled forever will the rhythmic tide of 
evolution cease to flow.** 


It has been recognized for some time that there have 
been cycles of elevations and depressions of the earth’s 
crust, and that with these variations of elevation there 
have been great variations of temperature as indicated, 
on the one hand, by the great coal-beds which have been 
found both in the arctic and antarctic regions, and, on 
the other hand, by the glaciers which at various times 
have covered a large part of the “temperate zones.” But 
it is only recently that a reasonable explanation has been 
offered for these cycles. “Joly has lately offered an explan- 
ation of this cycle based upon the radioactivity of the 
rocks of the earth’s crust. Assuming the lower basaltic 
strata to contain the same percentage of radioactive ma- 
terial as is found in those basaltic rocks available for 
examination at the surface, he finds that the heat devel- 
oped in the lower layers is greater than that actually being 
carried off by conduction in the upper layers. In con- 
sequence, the lower strata must eventually melt, and suffer 
a diminution in density. But because the melted rock 
makes better thermal contact with the overlying strata 
than did the solid form, and also because the melted rock 
is a better conductor (or rather convector) of heat than 
the solid form, it will now lose heat more rapidly than 

14 ’ “ Wea he Evolution of the 
aa aa PEL Nee eve aeG hee, oa ae ere Lull’s iene ie 
diagram, p. 111. 


66 COSMIC EVOLUTION 
aeerge's 


pers al and solidify with an increase of density, crack- 
ing loose from the surface layers, and again making poor 
thermal contact. The cycle then begins over again. In 
consequence of this periodic alteration in density of the 
underlying strata, the balance or isostacy of continents 
and oceans is disturbed, and elevations and depressions are 
produced. For this cycle Joly assigns a period of 40 mil- 
lion years.” ** With these rhythms of the earth’s crust 
there have taken place great-changes in the flora and fauna 
of the earth, which is to be expected, for life is part of 
the crust of the earth and therefore the pulse of life must 
vary with the pulse of the earth. Aside from the perio- 
dicities of the earth’s crust there are certain periodicities 
of solar energy as indicated in the variations of sun-spots. 
Attempts have been made to correlate epochs of human 
history with these pulsations of solar energy. Thus a 
Russian scientist, Tchijewski, has attempted to show that 
revolutionary periods in human history correspond with 
the maximal periods of sun-spots. This is too simple an 
explanation, since it ignores historical factors. But it 
seems reasonable that a great increase in solar pulsation 
should quicken the pulse of life and liberate the energies 
of men. We must wait for further evidence. In general 
we may be sure that the pulse of life varies with the pulse 
of the earth and that the pulse of the earth varies with 
the pulse of the cosmos. 

We must recognize the evolution of the earth as a unit. 
The pulse of life is part of the throbbing of our earth. We 
must conceive the evolution of its various forms, includ- 
ing life forms, as integral parts of its history, moving 
under cosmic control. We must place ourselves inside, 
instead of outside, the earth’s history if we would under- 
stand our place in evolution. For, after all, we and our 
civilization are part of the history of the earth, creative 
organizations of its crust. Life forms arise as specializa- 
tions of this crust; they maintain themselves subject to 


15 Article: “The Master Key,” by Dr. Paul R. Heyl, the Screntzific 
Monthly, Vol. V, XIX, pp. 7 and 8. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 67 


its equilibrium of forces, including the equilibrium of the 
specific life environment of which the particular life forms 
area part. Life forms which cannot maintain themselves 
in the struggle of forces, inorganic and organic, are doomed. 
This is the significance of natural selection. 


The Efficient Cause of Evolution 

We must now endeavour to discover the efficient cause 
which can account for evolution in the concrete. We can, 
of course, shirk the responsibility of causal explanation by 
saying simply of each particular form, species, and level 
that it emerges. This may be excusable as a matter of 
mere description. Everything that happens somehow 
emerges. Science may confine itself to tracing sequences. 
But when we essay to offer an explanation of these se- 
quences—and science does in part pretend to do so—we 
must show how new characteristics and forms emerge; and 
this means at least an attempt to exhibit the total matrix 
from which things emerge. If we offer a scheme of cate- 
gories from which things are supposed to emerge, we at 
least expose ourselves to criticism. We have a right to 
ask: Is the scheme of categories well founded? Is it im- 
plied in the constitution of reality? And, finally, is it ade- 
quate to account for the emergence of the facts in question? 

It must be clear now that we cannot separate life from 
the geological and cosmic environment if we would under- 
stand its evolution. We cannot regard the evolution of 
life as a mere internal process which is separated from 
the body cells and the external environment and in which 
the environment plays the merely accidental réle of segre- 
gating characters or splitting up the vital impulse into 
its ingredients. We cannot account for the characteristics 
of the organism as due merely to original unit characters, 
because, if we go back far enough, we come to a stage 
when such a type or species did not exist, and eventually 
we come to a stage in the earth’s evolution when life did 
not exist at all. The impetus to evolution must come, in 
the last analysis, from the cosmic environment, and is not 


68 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


merely potential from within. But, on the other hand, 
evolution is not merely a function of the environment, 
for all organisms do not respond in the same way to the 
same stimulus, they do not all have the same organiza- 
tion nor the same rate of evolution. During the great 
age of mammal evolution the reptiles remained com- 
paratively constant. Various organic forms have their 
history, duration, inertia, etc., in accordance with their 
own rhythm. i 

All agree that the great problem of evolution is a 
problem of organization. Even if we admit an original 
life impulse, a spore transported from some other sphere, 
the problem of organization still remains. And it is more 
reasonable to assume that life is indigenous to our earth 
in the cosmic economy. We must understand this organ- 
ization in terms of interaction between the complex sys- 
tem of energies of our earth, on the one hand, and the 
cosmic environment, on the other. Life must adapt itself 
to the character of its environment if it is to persist. There 
must be an exchange of energy between the part and the 
larger whole if the part is to live. In the creative adapta- 
tion of the particular life series to its environment lies 
the efficient cause of evolution. In this adaptation the 
specific life-system of energies must respond to its specific 
environment in a unique way, having reference, on the one 
hand, to the dynamic equilibrium of the environment and, 
on the other, to the dynamic duration and organization 
of life. 

The movement of evolution in the large, the appearance 
of new organs and new species, is due to interaction between 
the particular system of life energies and the environment 
This interaction in the case of the unicellular organisms 
seems comparatively direct—the protoplasm responding 
to stimuli of light, pressure, chemical composition, and 
gravity, by certain internal changes or rearrangements 
which, if compatible, enable the organism to live. In 
multicellular organisms the response of the organism is 
more indirect. The environment continues to act upon 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 69 


the organism. The organism in turn responds by processes 
of growth and differentiation in a trial and error process. 
This process is controlled not merely by the action of the 
environment but by the whole internal milieu or system 
of milieux with its composition, duration, and unique 
organization. Not even a pigment spot could be pro- 
duced by light through its direct action. Light does not 
produce pigment spots on water. It does not produce pig- 
ment spots on the jelly-fish impartially over the whole 
surface. Light starts the life energies at the surface, but 
the response depends upon the whole life system—its com- 
plexity, duration, and organization. The environment 
furnishes the original and persistent stimulus. The en- 
vironment also furnishes the survival conditions of the 
organism. The organism must establish a minimum ex- 
change of energy with the environment and be able to 
cope with its minimum requirements of competition. To 
effect this exchange the life stream itself must produce 
the growth and differentiation of structure according to 
the character and unique control of its milieu. 

We must understand adaptation, then, as a trial and 
error process to effect energy exchange between the stream 
of life and its environment. We must appreciate, more- 
over, the tremendous complexity of the problem of adapta- 
tion. No one has stated the problem so clearly as M. 
Rabaud: 


Every living substance is a colloidal complex in 
which the diverse components exist in definite pro- 
portions in relation to each other; but these propor- 
tions correspond to a certain system of exchanges, 
or, in other words, to a certain milieu. Hi the milieu 
changes, the system of exchanges varies and the pro- 
portions are modified. But it is clear that the prop- 
erties of a body of living substance depend strictly, 
not only on its qualitative composition, but also on 
its quantitative composition. According to the case, 
it will be more or less sensitive to light—and to such 


70 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


light—to temperature, to the state of humidity, to 
diverse vibrations. And, to speak precisely, the es- 
tablishing of the differentiations is nothing but the 
production of a series of modifications in the propor- 
tions of the diverse cellular components in functional 
relation with the changes of the milieu. Every multi- 
cellular organism is in fact an ensemble of internal 
milieux which are in a dependent relation one to the 
other and in the last analysis to the external milieu; 
each one of these milieux differs necessarily from 
its neighbours at the end of a certain time, and each 
determines for the cells which are included in it the 
systems of special exchanges. The living compound 
which forms the cells shows the conservation of the 
original substance, but it does not conserve the same 
proportions of the components; consequently one at 
least of the general properties of the substance con- 
sidered becomes for it preponderant; it becomes dif- 
ferentiated.*” 


The impetus to the differentiation of life lies in the last 
analysis in the characteristics of the environment. If there 
were no differences in the environment, there would be 
no impetus to differentiation in the life substance. Life 
strives to adapt itself to the characteristics of the environ- 
ment. But this adaptation is a complicated process. 
While the energy patterns of the environment furnish 
the initial and constant impulse to adaptation, and furnish 
in the end the criterion of the success of the adaptation, 
the adaptation itself must be carried out by the particular 
life compound with its ensemble of milieux according to 
its own system of control. It is a trial and error process 
of adaptation. The complexity, the history, and the 
specific organization of the life system condition its crea- 
tive adaptation to the particular energy pattern of the 
environment. Hence it is easy to see why life shows such 


1°. Rabaud, “L’adaptation et lévolution,’ Revue Philosophique, 
January-February, 1922, p. 80. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 71 


variety of differentiation to the general characteristics of 
the environment. Without light there would be no eyes, 
without sound there would be no ears, yet the response to 
light patterns and sound patterns varies largely in the 
realm of living things. I quote again from the brilliant 
statement by M. Rabaud: 


All organisms are not sensitive to the same vibra- 
tions, they do not hear the same sounds, they do not 
see the same colours; there are here radical differ- 
ences which result from analogous, but not concor- 
dant, differentiations and often bear witness to an 
independent origin. From a general point of view 
these differences have a great interest for us; they 
show that the formation of distinct tissues and organs 
corresponds nowise to the immediate necessities 
created by the external conditions. In a multicellular 
organism, the differentiations are brought about by 
the fact that the cells accumulate and determine the 
formation of internal milieux. The differentiations 
are brought about first of all as functions of these 
internal milieux and not by the controlling effort of 
a particular external influence. Light does not create 
the visual cells, nor sound the auditory cells, nor diges- 
tion the digestive cells. Light, sound waves, chemical 
substances do not determine a local modification at 
the point where they strike; but they determine a 
series of modifications which are interlinked and 
which concern all the internal milieux and the en- 
semble of exchanges. Hence, if !the variations of 
metabolism depend, at the point of departure, upon 
the action of light, upon vibrations, upon diverse 
substances, yet the modifications of the organism 
which follow are not necessarily in immediate rapport 
with the initial stimulus. The differentiations with 
reference to this will be various; they cannot be 
predicted. Plants do not see nor hear, and not all 
animals have differentiated organs of vision or hear- 


72 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


ing: all organisms, however, are sensitive to light and 
to vibrations. It is after the grouping of cells into 
tissues and organs is once accomplished that their 
special sensibility to such a component of the milieux 
is manifest and that these organs, within the organism 
of which they are a part, play a determined role. 
They do not play this rdle, however, except in func- 
tional relation with all the other parts and in the 
measure that the correlations between the diverse 
parts permit the continuation of the exchanges.” *’ 


It is here that the Darwinian principle of natural selection 
shows itself. The external environment has the first and 
last word. It, in the last analysis, through its diverse 
energy patterns gives the impetus to differentiation on 
the part of the organism; and it finally determines the 
success or failure of the trial and error process of creative 
adaptation. If the process results in rapport, at any rate 
to the extent of maintaining the necessary energy ex- 
changes with the environment, then the organism survives 
and with it the differentiation. 

In the creative adaptation of the stream of life to the 
energy patterns of the cosmic environment we have the 
efficient cause of the evolutionary process. Evolution is 
indeed to be understood as creative synthesis, as produc- 
tive reorganization, but it cannot be understood as a 
synthesis of chance or as a reorganization independent of 
the environment with which life must effect energy ex- 
change. It is a creative synthesis for which all the neces- 
sary conditions are supplied. It must account for the 
emergence and organization of characters; and must not 
merely make them emerge by magic from simpler ante- 
cedents. It must furnish a cause which is adequate to 
the effect. It is not by chance that life emerged in geolog- 
ical history, nor is it by chance that the series of life forms 
have emerged. Life is a creative adaptation of the ener- 
gies of matter under certain conditions—themselves the 


phy Reyes apn aniired he 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 73 


result of cosmic adaptation—to the energy structure of the 
cosmos. And new organic characters and changes in form 
are the progressive differentiations of living matter through 
a process of creative trial and error adaptation to respond 
to the energy patterns of the cosmos. 

The cosmic environment acts upon matter, or, better, 
the cosmic whole stimulates the part, for the earth and 
the parts of the earth develop in the womb of the cosmos, 
and under its control. Under favourable qualitative and 
quantitative conditions the specific stimulus pattern from 
without overcomes the inertia of the particular structure 
of matter and starts a process of adaptive response from 
within the system to meet the action from without. It is 
thus that new characters and new organs and new life 
forms emerge. The action may have to do merely with 
the adaptation of the individual organism to its environ- 
ment and may leave no apparent trace on the next genera- 
tion. It may cumulate its adaptive effect in the hereditary 
basis of life until it reaches a certain quantum, quantita- 
tively and qualitatively, and emerge after ages of matura- 
tion. It may emerge by degrees until the impulse results 
in acomplete adaptation. It may, under plastic conditions 
of stress and strain, emerge comparatively suddenly. But 
one thing is certain; it does not emerge by chance in isola- 
tion from the cosmic whole, but as a creative response to 
the characteristics of the cosmic structure. 

Nothing happens by chance, and it is not by chance that 
organisms have developed eyes, ears, and other sense 
organs. Our senses are creative adaptations to specific 
energy patterns of the cosmic environment. If ‘these 
energy patterns had not pre-existed in the cosmic environ- 
ment and acted upon the organic matter, there would have 
been no impulse to develop organs of response. When the 
particular organic adaptation has been made, we can take 
account of the objective energy pattern and adjust our- 
selves to it. We do not directly sense the organ of adapta- 
tion, but we sense the pattern for which it is made. We do 
not see our eyes, but we see light; we do not hear our 


74 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


ears, but we hear sound. The organism responds to the 
energy patterns that set it in special motion to establish 
rapport with them. 

It is not by chance that the organism has developed 
duration patterns as well as space patterns—the duration 
pattern of reflexes which span generations, the pattern of 
habit which conserves the effect of individual action, the 
duration pattern of memory which makes it possible to 
re-live the record of the past in a new setting. Such 
duration patterns involve profound changes in the struc- 
ture of the organism, and we must believe that these 
changes owe their impetus to the cosmic environment. We 
must understand reality as having not merely a spatial 
pattern, but a temporal or dynamic constitution of various 
grades of complexity; and we must believe that the life 
stream in its geological evolution responds creatively to 
this temporal structure of the universe and hence comes 
to assume temporal patterns of increasing complexity. 
Cumulative habit-taking is not a property of inorganic 
matter, much less is the qualitatively different and more 
complicated duration pattern of imaginative recall. And 
it is absurd to suppose that the immensely complicated 
organization at the basis of cumulative habit and the still 
more complicated organization presupposed by imagina- 
tive recall should have emerged by chance. 

It is not by chance that intelligence, creative imagina- 
tion, the sense of beauty, have developed in living matter. 
They are creative responses to the energy structure of 
reality. If seeing is a complicated adaptation, involving 
a trial and error process of organization of appropriate 
organs, under the impulse of light to see light, so thinking 
is a still more complicated adaptation, involving still . 
greater differentiation and organization that thinking may 
be possible and that thinking may take account of the 
logical structure of the universe. The sense of beauty is 
a complicated trial and error adaptation under the impulse 
communicated by an energy organization of beauty to 
recognize and enjoy beauty. Thus a soul is created in 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC ADAPTATION 75 


matter by creative adaptation to the cosmos to respond 
to soul; and in due time when the adaptation is complete 
it opens to the beauty and order of the cosmos, as flowers 
open full-blown to the sunlight to unfold in beauty and 
bear their proper fruit. If art seems a creative addition 
to nature, it is in the last analysis nature which creates the 
creative artist, for he is part of nature, contrived under 
nature’s impulse and responsive to nature’s inspiration. 
So we can say in the words of Shakespere: 


Yet nature is made better by no mean 

But nature makes that mean: so, over that art 
Which you say adds ta nature, is an art 

That nature makes. 


CHAPTER III 
EvoLuTIon AS Cosmic INTERACTION 


IT is not without misgiving that we try to rise in imagina- 
tion to the dizzy heights of reality whence we may survey 
cosmic evolution as a whole. In trying to do sojwe feel 
in the same frame of mind as Plato in the Timaus when he 
essayed a similar task: 


Socrates—And now, Timzus, you I suppose are to 
follow, first offermg up a prayer to the gods as is 
customary. 

Timeeus.—All men, Socrates, who have any degree 
of right feeling do this at the beginning of every 
enterprise great or small—they always call upon the 
gods. And we, too, who are going to discourse of the 
nature of the universe, whether created or uncreated, 
if we be not altogether out of our wits, must invoke 
and pray the gods and goddesses that we may say all 
things in a manner pleasing to them and consistent 
with ourselves. Let this, then, be our invocation to 
the gods, to which I add an exhortation to myself that 
I may set forth this high argument in the manner 
which will be most intelligible to you, and will most 
accord with my own intent.* 


In both the invocation and exhortation we now join. The 
magnitude of the problem has grown greatly since the days 
of Plato; and while we cannot hope to equal his genius, 
the data at our disposal are vastly more complex and add 
to our responsibility. 


Two Points of View of Evolution 


It would be foolish to enter upon this stupendous task 


1 Timeeus, Section 27, Jowett’s translation. 


76 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 77 


without taking counsel with the past. In surveying the 
tendencies of the past, two points of view stand out with 
striking contrast. These we may call, for the sake of 
brevity, the Aristotelian and the Darwinian. 

The Greek point of view, which finds its sublime expres- 
sion in Plato and Aristotle, emphasizes form. It predi- 
cates a finite world, final causes, immutable species, deter- 
mination of the lower by the higher. Reality for it is a 
closed system in which particular cycles run their course 
in obedience to the Idea of the good and the beautiful. 
Spiritual systems are supreme. It takes account of the 
world, as Spinoza would say, sub specie eternitatis. It 
gives but grudging recognition to the world of change, 
which is at best but a poor imitation of the eternal. It 
despises the infinite and formless. 

The modern point of view which finds its typical expres- 
sion in Darwinism emphasizes change, history, mechanical 
causes, flux of species, determination of the higher by the 
lower. History runs on like an old man’s tale without 
beginning, middle, or end, without any guiding plot. It 
is infinite and formless. Chance rules supreme. It 
despises final causes. 

We may take Aristotle as the representative of the Greek 
type of teleological explanation both because he envisaged 
evolution on a cosmic scale and because later teleological 
theories hark back to him. To Aristotle* we owe the 
supreme insight that if there is to be advance in nature 
toward higher levels, those levels must exist. 


The truth is, nothing is set in motion by chance: 
there must have been always some underlying cause, 
just as is the case now; a thing is moved this way by 
its nature, that way. by foree—whether of the mind or 
something else. 


We must interpret motion in the past by what we know 


2 The following quotations are from Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Book XII, 
Chapters 6 and 7, C. M. Bakewell’s translation in Source Book in 
Ancient Philosophy. 


78 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


of motion at present. If we find at present that later 
levels in a particular series are possible because they some- 
how pre-exist in reality and are determining causes of the 
temporal succession of levels; if we find that acorns grow 
into oaks because there are oaks and children grow into 
adults because there are adults, then we must believe that 
in the evolutionary process as a whole, the advance to 
higher levels in a particular series is due to the fact that 
these levels pre-exist as guiding causes. While it is true 
that in a particular life history the simpler stages are prior 
in time to the more complex and so seem to produce them, 
yet if we look at reality as a whole, the more advanced 
stages are prior to the more elementary stages; the actual 
is prior to the potential and furnishes the plus factor which 
makes a given level of development potential of a higher 
one. The stream of evolution does not rise higher than its 
source. 

It is impossible to project evolution into a single his- 
tory and account for the stages of development. There 
must, somehow, be adequate complexity in the structure 
of the cosmos to account for the advance in any temporal 
process. 


If it is true that actuality is prior to potentiality, 
it follows that we must not suppose that Chaos and 
Night existed for an indefinite time, but rather that 
the same things that exist now existed always, moving 
like a circle, returning upon itself, or in some other 
way. Now if the same world exists always in the cir- 
cular process there must be something that always 
abides and that is actually operative in one and the 
same way. But the process of coming into being and 
passing away is possible only on the assumption that 
there is something else that exists always and exerts 
its activity now in this way and now in that; and so 
it must exert its activity in one way with reference 
to itself, in another way with reference to something 
other than itself. It must therefore exert its activity 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 79 


either with reference to the primal heavens (the 
heaven of the fixed stars) or with reference to another 
and a different principle. Now it must of necessity 
be with reference to the primal heavens, for that in 
turn is cause both of its own movement and of the 
movement of the lower heavens (1.e., the planetary 
region, the sun, ete.). And so the heaven of the fixed 
stars is superior, for it is the cause of the eternally 
uniform motion while the lower heaven is the cause 
of the diversity of motion. Evidently both are causes 
of the eternally diverse motion. And in this way the 
different kinds of motion are related to each other. 
What need therefore to seek for other principles? 


The levels of reality must coexist in the cosmos. If it 
were not so, “all things would have to spring from Night 
or from Chaos or from the non-existent.” For Aristotle 
the qualitative levels of motion are also spatial levels. 
His levels, like Plato’s, are fundamentally levels of value, 
and nature must be obliging enough to stage its motions 
in space in accordance with the hierarchy of values. This 
simplifies matters very much for Aristotle with his geo- 
centric point of view. It is also congenial to his staging 
of the doctrine of the mean, so fundamental in Greek 
thought. 


There exists (1) something always moving with 
ceaseless motion, and its motion is cyclical. This is 
shown too not merely by our argument but also by 
the actual fact. Consequently the primal heavens 
are everlasting. Furthermore there exists (2) that to 
which these impart motion. And since that which 
both imparts motion and has motion imparted to it 
is in the mean position there exists also (3) something 
which imparts motion without itself having motion 
imparted to it—something which is eternal, which 
is an individual substance and wholly actual. 


The final source of motion must be “a principle of such 
a nature that its very substance is its being actually 


80 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


operative. Further, substances of this sort must be im- 
material; for they must be eternal if anything at all is 
eternal. They must therefore be pure actuality.” Matter 
cannot put itself in motion, and hence its motion must be 
derived from immaterial motion. 

There is in fact one substance which is absolutely self- 
moving and that is God, who is pure self-contemplation 
moving in a cycle of complete isolation or indifference to 
the rest of the cosmos. God contemplates only his own 
perfection. He is for Aristotle the ideal philosopher: 


God’s life is like that of which we catch a glimpse 
when our life is at its best. . . . If then God is 
always as well off as we are now and then, how won- 
derful it is! And if He is always better off, it is still 
more wonderful. But such is the fact. And life be- 
longs to Him; for the activity of mind 1s life, and He 
is that activity. Pure self-activity of reason 1s God’s 
most blessed and everlasting life. We say that God 
is living, eternal, perfect; and continuous and ever- 
lasting life is God’s, for God 1s eternal life. 


If we ask, then, how God can move the world since He 
is indifferent to the world in His pure, simple, perfect 
actuality, we are told that this is the way this highest 
actuality imparts motion: 


It is like the object of desire or the object of 
thought, for these impart motion without being moved 
themselves. 


The efficient cause, therefore, must be found in the lower 
stages, for it is the love in them for the ideal of perfec- 
tion, for the eternal type, which spurs them on. But 
whence the impulse? 

It is easy to show that, in the last analysis, Aristotle’s 
theory furnishes no efficient cause of the evolutionary 
process—of the emergence of properties, forms, and levels 
in our temporal world. There is a hiatus between the 
actual and potential—the eternal hierarchy of values and 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 81 


our temporal world of change—which he does not bridge. 
The conception of an isolated level of activity, such as 
Aristotle’s pure actuality, is a mere abstraction. We know 
activity only as exchange. We do not know it in isolation. 
And it is an ineffective abstraction because of its isolation. 
When Aristotle tries to account for the diversity of mo- 
tions and forms in our actual world, he is shot through 
with inconsistencies. All motion is communicated from 
form to matter, from the higher levels to the lower, yet 
matter 1s made to account for the diversity of motion. All 
form proceeds, in the last analysis, from the pure simple 
actuality of God, yet there is indefinite diversity of form. 
How does form become pluralized or individuated? Is it 
through matter? But matter is formless and has no form 
except what is communicated to it. Here we have prob- 
lems which were to perplex ages to come. Perhaps Aris- 
totle really meant to attribute rectilinear motion to 
matter in isolation, rather than to deprive it of all motion, 
and perhaps he meant to attribute merely the curvature 
of motion to higher levels, and perhaps it was because of 
this intuition of world curvature that he came to have the 
idea of natural places into which the constituent elements 
move—a sort of geodesic path. If so, Aristotle is the real 
founder of the general theory of relativity. But, in fact, 
Aristotle, like philosophers generally, after having stated 
certain general principles, does not take pains to show 
how a world, such as we know in part, could be derived in 
detail from these general principles. Instead of account- 
ing for the evolution of the world as it appears, he takes 
it for granted and merely adds his esthetic superstructure 
in accordance with his personal tastes. 

For Aristotle there is, as a matter of fact, no real evo- 
lution, no emergence of new forms in our terrestrial world. 
Oaks have always produced acorns, hens have laid eggs, 
human beings have generated children; and the offspring 
in each case conforms to type. Why then worry about 
how the types themselves have come to exist? So long 
as we deal with the repetition of the past, we can follow 


82 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


Aristotle’s conception that form must be immanent in 
the process, potentiality coming to its own in actuality. 
There is always an entelechy or form which guides every 
particular process. And what the world is, it always has 
been. Why bother oneself about how these entelechies or 
forms came to arise in our earth history? The supreme 
service of Aristotle is his insight that form does not arise 
by chance from chaos, that where there is a potential there 
must be an actual sufficient to explain its motion, that the 
whole must have the necessary complexity to account 
for the motion of its parts. He had the good sense of not 
postulating a causality of the future. Final causes in the 
sense of the end term of the temporal series acting upon 
the preceding terms are an illusion. The later events in 
the series have no way of directing the earlier events. Nor 
can causality from behind account for more than there is in 
the antecedents. If there is direction in the process it is 
not due to the first event, any more than to the last. It 
is due somehow to the compresence of factors in actuality. 
But Aristotle provided no efficient cause for temporal 
origins in the earth history in which we live and of which 
we are a part. He accepted a world ready-made. 
Compared to the esthetic structure of Aristotle, modern 
evolutionism is drab and formless. It tries to derive order 
from chaos. It emphasizes the temporal sequence of 
events. It treats geological history in isolation from the 
cosmic whole. The later characters, forms, and levels of 
evolution emerge by chance from earlier and simpler 
stages which do not possess them. By some magic the 
antecedent factors are supposed to yield new forms and 
characters. By chance variation the structure of proto- 
plasm is supposed to be built up from inorganic matter, 
and by further chance variation the various life characters 
and forms appear. Intelligence is but a favourable chance 
variation of material antecedents. Chance is God. All 
happens by emergence. Of course, if science limits itself 
to description and merely tabulates sequences, no fault 
need be found with its account. But science aims at 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 83 


explanation and it is no explanation to say that the later 
appearances emerge from the earlier appearances. We 
have a series of leaps, of unexplained discontinuities. To 
be sure, we have natural selection, which is supposed to 
account for the adaptiveness of structures to the environ- 
ment. But natural selection is a negative principle at 
best. It can produce nothing. It is merely stating that 
what cannot survive perishes, which is a truism. 

There are many forms of modern cosmology. But they 
all proceed from the lower to the higher, from chaos to 
cosmos. They may take matter for granted as Spencer 
does, and conceive evolution as a passing from the homo- 
geneous to the heterogeneous with a corresponding dissi- 
pation of motion, unmindful of the bankruptcy involved 
in such a process. They may try to evolve matter from 
some homogeneous ether by the introduction of motion 
which is supposed to stiffen the medium into vortex rings, 
etc., etc., but it is not clear where the motion with its 
diversity is going to come from; the properties of the ether 
are manufactured ad hoc and everything happens by 
chance. No attempt is made to account for the structure 
of the world as we know it. Modern evolutionism lacks 
any guiding field. Even if the influence of the environ- 
ment is admitted, as the paleontologists have been prone 
to do, the environment which is assumed is itself a chance 
affair and therefore does not help us to account for 
structure. 

The assumption by the pan-psychists and vitalists that, 
because properties and forms emerge in the process, they 
must have been present in the antecedents, that the atoms 
must have soul if they produce soul, or that everything 
is contained in some original life impulse which merely 
needs to be split up, or that there are entelechies of all 
individuals present somehow from the beginning, is even 
more absurd than the materialistic account. If we are to 
have any solid ground for inference and are not to lapse 
into mysticism, we must proceed from evidence, and 
there is no evidence of the properties of life or of soul 


84 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


in inorganic matter. Whoever was fool enough to sup- 
pose that even the properties of water are present in 
hydrogen or oxygen gas? Science recognizes that the ap- 
pearance of new properties and forms is due to organiza- 
tion, to creative synthesis. The problem is how to 
account for the impetus to organization. It is not rea- 
sonable to suppose that the highly complicated structure 
of the atom originated from electrons by chance, or that 
the periodic law of the elements originated by chance. 
And if it is absurd to suppose that the structure of inor- 
ganic matter originated by chance, how much more absurd 
is it to suppose that life compounds so originated! Modern 
science has become remarkably well equipped with phys- 
ical instruments, with microscopes and telescopes. What 
it lacks is the creative imagination of the Greeks. Who- 
ever saw the organization of a college in a microscope or 
telescope, much less the order of the cosmos? There is 
more to nature than abstract elements. There is genius 
in the humblest structure of nature—in the wind, in the 
sea, in the simplest phenomena of life—which is too deep 
for utterance. 

How long shall men waste their energies in the futile 
attempt to build the edifice of civilization of bricks with- 
out mortar? And how in the babel of noisy materialistic 
philosophies can the still small voice of sanity make itself 
heard? We must understand events not as mere chance 
occurrences, but as aspects of wholes, not mere space- 
wholes, not mere simultaneous sections of the temporal 
stream, but as space-time wholes or perspectives, in which 
time figures as an aspect as well as space, in which, in 
short, facts owe their significance to their duration and 
their trend, their backward and forward look. We must see 
the events in dynamic energy relations in which the future 
is as much part of the facts as the present and past and in 
which the elements can be seen to imply an organizing 
pattern. If evolution is rooted in chance, it is unaccount- 
able how the parts, with their individual motions, should 
evolve so as to produce a co-operative system adapted to 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 85 


its environment. How in such a world could there be “a 
universally creative tropism” toward higher levels of 
organization? Even if by some miracle such order could be 
consummated, the destructive forces must sooner or later 
reclaim their own; and chaos would rule again with no 
trace of the fleeting order that chance had superposed. 
But no such order could ever happen. Of all philosophies, 
materialism makes the greatest demands upon man’s 
credulity. The synthetic chemistry of nature has an ade- 
quate cause; and it is only man’s laziness and blindness 
which prevent him from seeking to discover the architec- 
ture of nature. It is the formlessness of men’s minds 
which makes them see nature as chance. While it is not 
true to say that our minds make the system of nature, 
it is true that only a systematic mind can discover system 
in nature. In nature’s order there is a sufficient reason 
for all that happens. 

The fallacy which underlies the various types of emer- 
gence theories is that we can account for new forms and 
characters in terms of the simpler antecedents in the 
series. This is a violation of the law of Leucippus that 
nothing happens without a reason. Why should new char- 
acters and forms appear from antecedents which do not 
possess them? It is true that in chemistry we find that 
compounds may have different characters from the ele- 
ments in isolation. But this is not a spontaneous result 
of the elements. It can only happen because of the action 
of the environment. Hydrogen and oxygen combine into 
the compound H.O under certain conditions of elec- 
trolysis or temperature. We must take into account the 
organizing relation of the cosmos as well as the elements. 
The elements assume a new form with new properties only 
under the impetus of a larger whole. It is futile to try 
to make the abstract factors of our analysis yield the new 
event. Causality can never be understood as a simple 
series of antecedents and consequents in time. To under- 
stand causality we must take account of the controlling 
field as well as the antecedent factors. Causality is never 


86 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


a determination from event to event in a particular time 
series. 

This is equally true whatever may be the factors with 
which we start. The heterogeneous does not emerge from 
the homogeneous by means of motion unless the motion 
contains somehow the basis of heterogeneity and the prin- 
ciple of organization. We may start, as the “new realism” 
does, with neutral entities and then propose to condense 
these into various qualitative series by means of velocity— 
from roughness to the richness of music.” The neutralists 
throw in an organizing relation ad hoc and let creative 
synthesis do the work. Anything can be made of neutral 
stuff if you just provide creative synthesis. This is about 
as intelligent as the suggestion of an ignorant country leg- 
islator when it was proposed to buy a dozen gondolas for 
a public lagoon. He sagely remarked that the proposition 
was wasteful and that in his opinion it would be sufficient 
to buy a couple and then let nature take her course. 
Nature is prolific, it is true; but she cannot breed from 
wooden abstractions. 

The most impressive attempt to evolve the richness of 
reality from abstract postulates is that of Professor 8. 
Alexander in his fascinating book, Space, Time and Deity. 
Alexander starts with nothing but the mathematical ab- 
stractions of space and time; and out of this gossamer 
stuff he attempts to weave a cosmos: 


Space and Time have no reality apart from each 
other, but are aspects or attributes of one reality, 
Space-Time or motion. This is the stuff of which all 
existents are composed; and it breaks up of itself into 
these complexes within the one all-embracing stuff.’ 


It is to be remembered that neither space nor time has 
such potency in itself. This can be found only in their 
combination. Time-instants must be wedded to space- 

°F. B. Holt’s essay in The New Realism, 1912; also his The Concept 
of Consciousness, 1919. For a criticism see A Realistic Universe, J. H. 


Boodin, 1916, pp. 95-99. _ 
* Space, Time and Deity, Vol. II, p. 428. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 87 


points, or rather they always exist in indissoluble union 
and cannot in fact be put asunder. Minkowski had sug- 
gested as early as 1908 that our description of physical 
events must be four-dimensional, 7.e., in terms of space- 
time. The same idea has been elaborated in the theory of 
relativity. But what for Minkowski and Einstein is a 
descriptive device becomes for Alexander a metaphysical 
postulate. The artificial abstractions of geometry become 
the primitive stuff out of which the world is generated. 
If we proceed by analytical abstraction from the concrete 
flow of reality, we arrive at pure motion without anything 
moving; and abstract motion can be analyzed into the 
abstract concepts of space and time—the combination of 
space-points with time-instants. Why not reverse the 
process and by synthetic chemistry generate reality out 
of its last abstractions? No doubt exists in Alexander’s 
mind that the abstract concepts of mathematics are attri- 
butes of the real world. They are not for him, as for 
Henri Poincaré, pragmatic conventions contributed by 
the human mind and relative to the needs of description. 
They must meet the needs of metaphysical interpretation. 
They are legislative to reality, and constitutive of reality. 
Given space-time, we can account for everything by 
increasing complexity. It does not occur to Alexander that 
in the various stages of abstraction something may have 
been left out of the living dialectic of reality, and that, 
without this something more, our intellectual abstractions 
are unreal and barren. 

For Alexander everything emerges from the complexities 
of space-time. The abstractions of space and time are 
invested with metaphysical properties which have nothing 
to do with the mathematical origin of these concepts. 
Space becomes a metaphysical continuum and not just a 
mathematical continuum, and thus space furnishes con- 
tinuity to the instants of time. Space also has the property 
of conserving the instants of time. Space furnishes the 
continuity and time the content. Time is like a fly speck- 
ing diversity over the blank continuum of space. Alex- 


88 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


ander further assumes a nisus of events in space-time. 
This nisus seems to be a sort of agent directing toward 
ever higher syntheses. In other words, the matrix of space- 
time possesses all the attributes necessary to account for 
reality. We can derive the abstract categories from space- 
time by abstracting “certain fundamental features which 
belong to every existent generated within the universe of 
Space-Time.” We thus get substance, causality, ete. 


Besides these fundamental features, things possess 
quality which is the empirical feature of things. 
Qualities form a hierarchy, the quality of each level 
of existence being identical with a certain complexity 
or collocation of elements on the next lower level. 
The quality performs to its equivalent lower existence 
the office which mind performs to its neural basis. 


Thus we may speak of colour as the soul of the vibrations 
of light. 


Mind and body do but exemplify, therefore, a rela- 
tion which holds universally. Accordingly Time is 
the mind of Space and any quality the mind of its 
body, or to speak more accurately, mind and any 
other quality are the different distinctive complexities 
of Time which exist as qualities.° 


Alexander reverses the Kantian conception of time. In- 
stead of regarding time as a form of the mind, “we must 
say that mind is a form of time.” ° For mind “is but the 
last complexity of Time which is known to us in finite 
existence.” ” Miunds, as existents within space-time, 


enter into various relations of a perfectly general 
character with other things and with one another. 
These account for the familiar features of mental life: 
knowing, freedom, values, and the like.* 


5 The above quotations in this paragraph are from Alexander’s remark- 
able summary, Vol. II, pp. 428, 429, 

° Ibid., p. 44. . 

T Ibidi,.p. 345. 

® Tbid., p. 429. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 89 


But ahead, always ahead is God, who is conceived at any 
stage of development as the next stage, the uncreated 
which is about to emerge from the complexities of Space- 
Time. Thus, before life emerged, life was God to the 
inorganic stage. “In the hierarchy of qualities the next 
higher quality to the highest attained is deity.” °® But 
there is also in Alexander the pantheistic note. 


God is the whole universe engaged in process to- 
wards the emergence of this new quality, and religion 
is the sentiment in us that we are drawn towards 
Time, and caught in the movement of the world to a 
higher level of existence.** 


Such is the potency of space-time with the fertile 
imagination of Alexander added. But what about the 
potencies of the postulates themselves? Why should en- 
sembles of space-points and time-instants have such fer- 
tility when wedded to each other and taken in perspec- 
tive? And what accounts for the nisus towards more 
complex levels with their souls? What is to pre- 
vent time and space if left to themselves from run- 
ning riot—running any way whatsoever, downward as 
well as upward? And what is to prevent us from con- 
celving any space-time synthesis as complete? There 
is no longer any difficulty of conceiving infinite series and 
ensembles of infinite series as complete. Of course, any 
‘ postulates will do if we are willing to accept the thesis 
that the emergent qualities in empirical evolution are due 
to the postulates. But should we not enquire into the 
adequacy of the postulates? Can we make our concepts 
mean anything we want them to mean in order to do the 
work we want them to do? It would seem as though, if 
we want such abstract names to do so much work, we 
should at least pay them extra. (Or is capitalizing them 
sufficient honour?) But such work is magic, not logic. 

° Ibid., p. 429. 


1° Ibid., p. 429. In order to get the sweep and seductiveness of Alex- 
ander’s argument it is necessary to read the book, 


90 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


And a magnificent magician Alexander is. His book makes 
the Arabian Nights’ Tales tame to one who can follow. 
But we always feel that there is more in the mind of the 
manipulator, to account for such wonderful appearances, 
than the abstractions he exhibits to us. The rest of us, 
at any rate, no matter how we manipulate the abstract 
concepts of space and time, seem to get nothing but space 
and time out of them. 

We can, of course, take refuge in some general concept 
like the Absolute of Hegel or the Unconscious Will of 
Schopenhauer or the Creative Imagination of Douglas 
Fawcett and make such an inclusive concept responsible 
for everything. Hegel’s Absolute is a rather skilful manip- 
ulation of the psychological furniture of its author; and 
at least it has resources of its own, greater than those 
supplied by the antecedent categories at any stage. But 
the selection of the categories and their transition show 
much more of the psychological bias of the manipulator 
than of strict logical implication. Schopenhauer’s Uncon- 
scious can do anything, if you once admit that everything 
that happens is the product of the Unconscious. Creative 
Imagination is more fruitful as a universal category than 
formal implication; but we must still show how it creates 
in the concrete. And not all creativeness is of the order 
that we ordinarily denote by creative imagination. 

In a large sense the order of the whole manifests itself 
in the order of the parts, but the parts are not mere func- 
tions of the whole, as the monistic theories all imply. Of 
course, if we mean by the Absolute all parts in concrete 
relations within the control of the whole, and contribut- 
ing their individual determinations and histories to the 
significance of the whole, then everything would seem to 
follow, but we should still like to understand the relation 
of whole and part in our concrete world of change. The 
absolutistic systems have seemed too much like staging 
abstract categories. We should like to have some creden- 
tials that they can really do the work they undertake. 
For, after all, our absolutes are man-made and, if scruti- 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 91 


nized closely, they can be seen to bear the original stamp 
of “made in Germany.” If the process of evolution is to 
be understood as the mere emergence from simpler ante- 
cedents, then psychological monism becomes indistinguish- 
able from materialistic monism. The problem which both 
materialism and idealism must face is that of an adequate 
efficient cause to account for evolution in the concrete. 


The Conception of Cosmic Interaction 

But we must not become misologists and despair of the 
possibility of knowledge. Nor have the attempts in the 
past been in vain. The Greeks have shown us the impor- 
tance of form, of the pre-existence of structure, if we are 
to understand evolution. The modern evolutionists have 
shown us the importance of recognizing real history, real 
change, and studying the emerging qualities in their serial 
order. In the theory of cosmic interaction we hope to 
combine the Greek love of form with the modern respect 
for process. Thus we hope to establish an efficient cause 
for evolution. Let us recur to a concrete instance already 
used in another chapter. 

We have seen that it is incredible that chance should 
account for the adaptive organization, over periods of mil- 
lions of years, of the enormous number of factors involved 
in the response of seeing light. Such adaptation, we have 
seen, can only be explained by the constant action of 
light patterns, in a medium of suitable density, tempera- 
ture, and chemical composition, upon the properties and 
duration of the life stream. It is vastly more incredible 
that the infinitely more complicated organization involved 
in the adaptation we know as creative thought should 
emerge by chance. Here too we must postulate interaction 
if we would have a sufficient reason. During untold ages 
the cosmic environment must have acted upon our earth 
to steer the process of geological evolution, before the 
structural conditions could appear which made the divine 
flash of thought possible. For as in the case of sight the 
functioning of seeing could only occur when the structural 


92 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


conditions were complete, so in the case of thought the 
function of thinking, the unique response to the logical 
pattern of our world, could only occur when, in the course 
of the long ages of trial and error adaptation, the struc- 
tural conditions were complete for the act of thinking. 
The adaptive organization implied in thinking involves 
not only the creation of specific sense organs to respond to 
the various stimuli of nature, but it involves the creation 
of a nervous system with its duration patterns of habit 
and concrete memory, the creation of language mechanisms 
with their cerebral and terminal organization for expres- 
sion, the creation of an organization which controls 
expression with reference to a social milieu and which can 
respond by a creative trial and error process of analysis 
and synthesis to the objective structure of the environment 
—an organization which is linked up with the affective 
and motor systems so as to make possible an enjoyment 
of realization on the one hand and a proper executive 
mechanism for its trial and error procedure on the other. 

It is no explanation to say that such an ensemble of 
structures has evolved because it is useful. Thought, no 
more than the organization for seeing, could be useful 
until the organization for the unique response was com- 
plete. The assumption that such an organization could 
arise by accidental variations in the germ plasm in isola- 
tion from the cosmic environment and without any guiding 
control is too absurd to be entertained by a reasonable 
mind. The only possible sufficient reason for the evolu- 
tion of the function of thinking is the interaction of the 
geological process including the stream of life with a 
cosmic constitution which has a logical pattern. The 
constant impetus to the evolution of thinking, as to seeing, 
must come from the cosmic whole of which the history of 
the earth is a part, and to which it comes to respond differ- 
entially through a trial and error process. As the result 
of this process, there appears in the fulness of time the 
flash of thought, as there appears the flash of light. As 
the flatfish imitates on its back, through a trial and error 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 93 


process, the pattern upon which it lies, not knowing what 
it is doing, so the geological life stream, by a trial and 
error process, strives to imitate through the ages the per- 
vasive energy constitution within which it lives and moves 
and has its being. And, as in the case of vision, light acts 
to produce an impulse in the stream of life to prepare the 
specific structural adaptation for seeing light during vast 
ages before it can be seen as light, so the thought structure 
of the cosmos produces an impulse in the geological process 
to produce a structural adaptation to respond to thought 
during the long ages before the geological process is pre- 
pared to recognize thought. Both the sense of sight and 
intelligence must be understood, in the last analysis, as 
parts of an integral process of creative adaptation to cos- 
mic structure. 

In evolution it is the later adaptations that overlap and 
reveal more completely the nature of the cosmic control 
which furnishes, in the last analysis, both the impetus 
and the guiding field of the evolutionary process in any 
part of the cosmos. So far from creative thought being 
an accidental addition to sense responses and to habit 
and memory patterns, it is the creative thought pattern of 
the cosmos which stimulates geological history to its trial 
and error procedure to produce the sense organization, 
with its differential methods of response, and the duration 
organization with its habit and memory patterns as inte- 
eral parts of the process of thought adaptation. The 
thought pattern organization is not produced in isolation 
from the pattern responses that precede it. Without sense 
organization, and without habit and memory organization 
there could be no thought organization, but thought struc- 
ture is not a mere complication of simpler structures but 
a further integration in which these structures figure as 
instrumental parts. The thought adaptation, like the 
structural adaptation for seeing, must be regarded from 
the point of cosmic evolution as an integral dynamic 
process of which sense organization and duration organl- 
zation are stages. So light produces adaptive trial and 


94 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


error responses which, once the adaptation is complete, 
may be regarded as stages in the complete adaptation to 
seeing. The light tropism of primitive organisms, the 
pigment spot of the jelly-fish, the lensless eye, the non- 
focusing eye, the focusing eye, the eye responding to the 
yellow-blue series of colours, may be regarded as stages 
in the history of complete light adaptation, integral to 
the adaptive response of the higher animals with their 
bifocal vision and their differential response to colour. 
The question may be raised, if there is a cosmic environ- 
ment which stimulates to adaptation in the cosmic parts 
and furnishes a guiding field for the part-histories, such as 
our geological history, why does evolution, as we know it, 
radiate in various directions? And why should it seem 
truncated, why does it stop short of the larger integral 
adaptation which we find in a few favoured instances? 
The answer is that evolution is never a simple function 
of the environmental field. We must take account of the 
nature of matter with its inertia and its diversity of im- 
pulses and motions. If there were no cosmic guiding field, 
there would be no evolution. But it is also true that if 
there were no reacting matter, there would be no evolution. 
Evolution is a complex function involving not merely the 
character of the cosmic guiding field, but the reacting 
individual as well. Evolution is an adaptive organization 
of matter to respond to its cosmic field. Hence we must 
not forget to give due credit to matter. Evolution may be 
spoken of as the incarnation of the energy patterns of the 
cosmic environment into material bodies. Hence the un- 
equal inertia of matter and the elementary impulses and 
properties of matter count. Philosophers have sometimes 
inveighed against the inertia of matter, but they have 
forgotten to give credit for the docility of matter. The 
motions of matter can be curved within the guiding field. 
The character of matter makes cumulative adaptive struc- 
ture possible even if matter of itself cannot produce the 
order implied. The impulse to creativeness must come from 
the cosmic guiding field. But this impulse is conditioned 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 95 


by the inertia of matter with its characteristics, duration 
and organization at any one time. 

We must try to envisage geological evolution as a whole 
in relation to its cosmic guiding field. We are all accus- 
tomed to think of the course of the earth in space as due 
to its guiding field. The motion of the earth in space can- 
not be understood by attending to the earth in isolation 
from the rest of the cosmos. What is true of the motion 
of the earth in space is also true of the motion of the 
earth in time. The history of the earth can no more be 
understood than can its course in space by attending to 
the earth in isolation from the cosmos. In each case we 
must strive to understand the structure of its guiding 
field if we would understand the direction of its motion. 
Nor can we in either case understand the motion of the 
earth if we neglect to take into account the material 
energy system of the earth itself. The direction of the 
earth’s motion is in neither case a simple function of its 
cosmic environment. We must consider the integral field 
with the earth as part of it, if we would understand the 
curvature of the earth’s path. The course of the earth 
in cosmic space and the course of its evolution are alike 
determined by adjustment, the adaptation of the earth to 
the structure of the cosmos. The course of the evolution 
of the earth is no more a matter of chance than are its 
space relations. Nothing emerges in the history of the 
earth which is not determined by the interaction of the 
earth’s milieu of energies with the structure of its cosmic 
environment. If the stream of life pulsates in adjustment 
with the total pulse of Mother Earth, so the evolution of 
the earth pulsates in adjustment with the rhythm of the 
cosmos. Our geocentric blindness to this fact no more 
alters the fact than our geocentric blindness for ages to the 
earth’s motion in space altered the fact of that motion. 
Our earth is as little self-sustaining in its evolutionary 
course as it is in its space relations. Only the whole is 
self-sustaining; and we must understand the geometry of 
the earth’s history, as we have come to understand the 


96 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


geometry of its space relations, in terms of the dynamic 
geometry of the whole. 


Preformism and Epigenesis Reconciled 

Once we understand the fundamental fact that the evo- 
lution of the earth is determined by cosmic interaction, 
then the emerging of characters and forms in the history of 
the earth ceases to be a matter of magic. “Nothing happens 
without a sufficient reason.’ becomes applicable to events in 
history as it has already been applied to motions in space. 
We have then a key to the classical antinomy of pre- 
formism and epigenesis. Preformism, broadly speaking, 
has insisted that the emergence of characters and individ- 
ual forms in the present must be foreshadowed in the past; 
that the form of the individual is present in the structure 
of the germ cell, and this in turn in its constituting fac- 
tors, and so back indefinitely. But it is an indisputable 
fact that new characters and forms appear. Are these 
latent, then, in the past? But why are they called forth 
at a particular time? Is the whole order of evolution latent 
in the simplest beginnings? Is the history of life with 
its varying forms, its radiations, its reversals of direction 
with a changing environment latent in the original proto- 
plasm; and not only that but in the preceding inorganic 
stages of the earth’s evolution? It is a theory not only 
lacking evidence, but logically incredible. It is true that 
somehow there must be reason for the order which we find 
in evolution, but we cannot account for this order solely 
in terms of the antecedent events, projected in one per- 
spective. 

The theory of epigenesis in its most general terms em- 
phasizes novelty. It lays hold of the fact that new char- 
acters, organs, and forms appear. The new events are 
supposed to be a synthesis of pre-existent characters, but 
the later form does not exist in the preceding events. The 
present is not the mere unravelling of the past. There are 
additions. And these additions, if not cut short by nat- 
ural selection, cumulate in a certain direction until new 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 97 


forms, new organs appear which can play a part in life 
adjustments. But all this is supposed to happen in iso- 
lation from the environment of the germ plasm. It is 
due to spontaneous variations in the presumably isolated 
basis of heredity. This theory retires behind its professed 
ignorance of how the variations occur; it furnishes no 
explanation of why the variations should accumulate in a 
certain direction so as to emerge eventually in forms and 
organs which are adapted to a specific environment. Lately 
the magic phrase, creative synthesis, is made to account 
for new characters and forms. It is pointed out that the 
compound, water, has different properties from those of 
the separate elements, hydrogen and oxygen. These new 
properties are said to be due to a creative synthesis of the 
properties of hydrogen and oxygen. But*water does not 
arise fortuitously from mere hydrogen gas and oxygen gas 
in isolation from the environment. Not only must there 
be quantitative proportions, but there must be quantita- 
tive energy conditions such as heat or electricity. It is by 
determinate action of the environment that the two gases 
enter into synthesis and assume new properties. The 
value of the theory of epigenesis is that it emphasizes that 
there are new events in the series, that evolution means 
creative addition and not the mere squeezing out of char- 
acters and forms from antecedents which show no evidence 
of them. 

The fact is that preformism and epigenesis are abstrac- 
tions, unintelligible and contradictory when taken by 
themselves. And yet from the point of view of the whole, 
each has its truth. There is preformation in the whole in 
relation to the history of any part of the cosmos. It is not 
an accident that geological history runs its course as it 
does. On the other hand, each history is marked by crea- 
tive additions which cumulate into more complex struc- 
tures. The later events are not mere repetitions of the 
earlier. They are not implicit in the earlier. Both pre- 
formism and epigenesis find their explanation in cosmic 
interaction—in the creative adaptation of the part to the 


98 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


impetus communicated to it by cosmic structure elsewhere. 
This does not mean mere repetition, mere imitation of the 
pre-existent structure. The processes of adaptation of the 
less developed history may not be characteristic of the 
more advanced history elsewhere. Every history adapts 
itself by a trial and error process characteristic of its milieu, 
resulting from its own composition, conditions, and history. 
The effects of the cosmic environment are masked by the 
complexity of the adaptation of the more developed or- 
ganisms, but they are real nevertheless; it still holds that 
the life process is one of adaptation to accomplish energy 
exchange. The structure which results is itself the prod- 
uct of the process of creative adaptation. It is correspond- 
ingly unique and not copied from elsewhere. 

The law of rectigradation which means that variations, 
as observed in many life series, cumulate in the direction 
of an adaptive response, now gets its true setting. The 
law of rectigradation is not an abstraction, inherent in life 
and matter in isolation and working without reference to 
the action of the environment. It is the result of the inter- 
action of the geological stream of life with the cosmos. The 
seeming preadaptation or fitness of the earlier for the later 
stages is due to the fact that what is future in the geolog- 
ical series is compresent in its structural characteristics 
with the geological series, owing to more advanced his- 
tories elsewhere in the cosmos, with which the life process 
is striving to effect energy exchange. 


Coexistent Levels in Cosmic Evolution 

The universe cannot be understood as one history pro- 
ceeding from chaos to cosmos by chance combination of 
elements and natural selection. Rather must we under- 
stand reality as arhythm of multiple histories which exist 
at different levels and which interact. The order of evo- 
lution at lower levels must be determined by interaction 
of the lower level with the higher levels. We find this 
relation exemplified in social evolution which itself is 
part of cosmic evolution. Here we have individual his- 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 99 


tories of various degrees of maturity—childhood, youth, 
manhood, old age. Childhood does not develop in isola- 
tion from the later levels of maturity. But these coexist 
with childhood and through the organization, which they 
embody as tradition, furnish a guiding field to the new 
generation. The new generation in turn responds by 
creative adaptation to the social structure embodied in 
older generations and thus takes on the forms of social 
organization. This relation of interaction holds not only 
between the younger and older generations within one 
group or civilization, but it holds also between different 
groups and civilizations. Less mature groups come in con- 
tact with more advanced, and adapt themselves to the 
more mature civilization in accordance with their history 
and genius. 

Social evolution is not complete in itself and therefore 
cannot fully exemplify cosmic evolution, for social evolu- 
tion is but part of the evolution of life which moves in 
rhythm with the more inclusive evolution of the earth; 
and the whole of geological evolution, with its various 
histories and levels, moves within a cosmic field. But at 
any rate social evolution exemplifies the organizing im- 
pulse which comes from more developed histories to less 
developed histories. Without such a stratification of levels 
in society there could be no creative advance in human 
history, not to mention the fact that there could be no 
biological survival. In fact, the nurture of the younger 
generation by the older with its milieu of habits is the 
condition of the existence of all higher animal life. The 
point I wish to emphasize is that in the portion of cosmic 
evolution of which we have the most intimate acquaint- 
ance, viz., social evolution, the creative advance of nature 
is conditioned by the coexistence of levels and the fructifi- 
cation of the lower levels by the higher. Even the cosmic 
gift of creative genius with its creative adaptation is con- 
ditioned by this stratification of social life. Genius, to 
become fruitful, cannot live in isolation. It must interact 
with the level of tradition, attained through the ages, in 


100 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


order to enrich that tradition with its creative adaptation. 
This adaptation means the fructifying of tradition with a 
new rapport with cosmic genius. 

If we once realize that in the universe as a whole higher 
and lower levels coexist, then we can at least see the pos- 
sibility that the creative advance in any one history is due 
to the interaction of that history with higher levels in 
the cosmos. As in social evolution the adaptation of the 
less advanced stage of development to the more advanced 
is conditioned by the history and structure of the less ad- 
vanced, so on the larger scale of cosmic interaction we must 
not conceive the advance of a lower level as a simple func- 
tion of the higher, but must conceive such adaptation as 
conditioned by the history and structure of the lower. But 
in their generic features, at any rate, the past, present, and 
future may be conceived as coexisting in the cosmos as a 
whole. The past, present, and future levels of the develop- 
mental history of our earth may be conceived to exist in 
their generic structural characteristics yonder in the vari- 
ous histories of the cosmos as the various stages of a human 
individual, in their generic features coexist in the over- 
lapping generations of the race. The repetition is not 
exact, since each generation, human and cosmic, has its 
own motion, duration, and unique structure; and there- 
fore it is an adaptation with variations. In cosmic his- 
tories, as in human, there is evidence of accidents, and a 
particular history may not complete its growth-span 
whether from internal instability or unfavourable external 
conditions. 

As over against the conception of evolution as one his- 
tory proceeding from the homogeneous to the heteroge- 
neous, from chaos to order by chance, I conceive the cosmos 
as a structure consisting of a plurality of histories of dif- 
ferent levels interacting upon each other. In order to 
account for evolution as we know it, these levels must be 
not merely quantitative, having reference to the intensity 
of energy potentials—though they must be this in a self- 
running cosmos; but there must also be qualitative levels 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 101 


having reference to organization and furnishing an impulse 
to organization in other levels. The great motto of Leu- 
cippus, “Nothing happens without a reason,’ applies to 
the organization of energy as well as its quantity. A new 
direction of organization can no more take place without 
an impulse from without than can a new space direction 
of motion. And as the impulse to a new direction of mo- 
tion is conditioned by the inertia of the moving body, so 
the impulse to new organization is conditioned at each 
stage by the inertia of the organization already existing. 
We cannot, of course, separate the quantitative and quali- 
tative aspects of evolution. But neither is one a simple 
function of the other. The period of maximum intensity 
of energy seems to be the period of minimum organization, 
nor can qualitative evolution go on below a certain mini- 
mum intensity. A golden mean of intensity is required 
for the maximum of qualitative evolution. But mere 
variation in intensity cannot produce organization. The 
impulse to organization must come from pre-existent or- 
ganization. 

From the point of view of geological history we have a 
series of discontinuous steps. In some fashion the earth 
is a cumulative condensation within the nebulous state 
of matter which preceded our solar sytem. The geological 
strata indicate that for vast ages there was no life upon 
our planet. But in the meantime the earth, while increas- 
ing in mass, was also undergoing an evolution in the pro- 
portional distribution and combination of elements and 
the establishing of such conditions of temperature, dens- 
ity, moisture, etc., as are necessary to life. In due time 
life appeared in the form of those micro-organisms which 
are the antecedents of our bacterial life and which have 
left their record indirectly in certain geological changes 
in the earth’s crust. The appearance of the simplest forms 
of life is unlike anything which preceded as a system of 
energies. But the creative passing from these to the pro- 
tozoa is no less a leap; and the passing from the unicellu- 
lar organism to the multicellular marks the beginning of 


102 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


an even more remarkable series of transformations. At a 
very early stage the life process splits into two branches, 
the vegetable and the animal; the former remarkable for 
its adaptation for the storing of energy, the latter for its 
adaptation for converting energy into action. If we 
follow the latter development, we note the gradual emer- 
gence of new forms of structural organization until man 
finally appears. With the growing complexity of physio- 
logical organization appears a series of developmental 
steps towards intelligence—sense differentiation, habit, 
memory, language mechanisms, culminating in creative 
thought, social organization, the sense of beauty, the feel- 
ing of religious reverence. 

This marvellous series of transformations in the earth’s 
history cannot be the result of the primal constitution of 
matter in isolation. It is due, we believe, somehow to the 
interaction of matter with its cosmic environment. The 
cosmos must somehow possess the stratification of struc- 
ture which can give impulse to the creative evolution of 
our earth. The earth, even physically viewed, is not iso- 
lated. It is a condensation within an electromagnetic 
field and is part of that field. Aside from the evidence 
of the interaction of matter upon matter in the gravita- 
tional relation, we know now some forty different types of 
radiant energy which are communicated to the earth from 
the cosmos. The eye, we have seen, is a creative adapta- 
tion of organic bodies to a certain range of these waves. 
But there are other waves of shorter wave lengths such 
as ultra violet, X-rays, and gamma rays. And there are 
waves of longer wave length, down to those used in wire- 
less communication. These are complexities which we 
have been able to discover by improved physical instru- 
ments, but they probably indicate only a small part of 
the complexity of the cosmic influences that reach our 
earth. Some of these cosmic energies not only act from 
outside on material bodies but are inducted into material 
bodies such as electricity, and some can pass through ma- 
terial bodies as in the case of X-rays. So far from being 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 103 


isolated, the matter of our earth is a centre of exchange 
in a cosmos of undreamed-of complexity. If this is true 
of the material adaptation of our earth, it must be true in 
a vastly greater degree of its spiritual adaptation. 


The Evolution of Matter and Cosmic Levels 


If we look at the problem of evolution from the cosmic 
instead of the geological point of view, we find various 
worlds in various stages of material evolution. All the 
cosmic generations coexist in the depths of space. We find 
all the ages of evolution from diffuse nebule to worlds 
that have passed into senility and become dark and cold, 
though the astronomer’s instruments can still identify 
many of them, for matter always radiates in all its 
stages. The spectroscope shows that in this vast array 
of worlds, irrespective of their ages and conditions, the 
same elements and properties of matter can in general be 
identified as on our earth. Sometimes new elements have 
been identified in the stars before they were known on 
earth. Do the elements themselves evolve in the cosmic 
laboratory? Certain it is that atomic matter is an organi- 
zation of simpler units. We know now that matter is not 
a mere homogeneous plenum as the ancients thought, but 
a marvellous hierarchical organization. Compound sub- 
stances are an organization of molecules, every such sub- 
stance having its own architecture and range of adapta- 
tion. The molecules, again, are an organization of atoms 
and have their own architecture. The marvellous structure 
of certain crystals and certain metals has now been re- 
vealed by X-ray photographs. And the atoms, so long 
regarded as indivisible, are now conceived as miniature 
solar systems—negative charges of electricity, the elec- 
trons, moving with reference to a positively charged nu- 
cleus, within the constellation of the atom. The mass of 
an electron is said to be about 1/1850 of the mass of a 
hydrogen atom. Almost the entire gravitational mass of 
the atom is, therefore, due to the nucleus. The real units 
of modern physics are not the eighty-eight known chem- 


104 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


ical elements but the two types of electrically charged 
matter—the electron with its negative charge and the nu- 
cleus with its positive charge. Within the atom like charges 
repel each other and unlike charges attract each other ac- 
cording to the law of the inverse square. The elements 
are now conceived as organizations of these two types of 
constituents with increasing complexity. With the com- 
plexity go greater degrees of freedom or instability, which 
is seen in the inverse process, the breaking down of the 
highly complex radioactive elements and their degenera- 
tion to helium and lead. We are as ignorant of the varia- 
tions of cosmic weather which cause the breakdown of 
the radioactive elements as we are of the conditions of 
their synthesis. 

The relation of the elements to each other has been of 
great interest to science ever since Mendeleef discovered 
the periodic law of elements in 1870. It seemed to him 
significant that the elements could be arranged in a series 
on the basis of atomic weight and that the other elements 
could be treated as multiples of hydrogen. (This proved 
to be approximate, but the discrepancy seems to be in a 
way to be explained on the basis that mass may be gene- 
rated by velocity.) But more significant proved the dis- 
covery of certain periodicities in the atomic table, 7.e., the 
recurrence of certain characteristics in elements which 
makes it convenient to group them together, as, for ex- 
ample, the alkalis. It was possible in this way to predict 
elements in the series in advance which greatly aided dis- 
covery. The question naturally occurred whether other 
elements might not be regarded as evolved from hydrogen 
atoms. But this was speculative, until the discovery of 
the radioactive elements towards the end of the nineteenth 
century revolutionized our conception of matter. Recent 
spectral analysis has made it possible to give a more ade- 
quate explanation of the periodic law, basing it upon the 
structure of the atom instead of its weight, which had 
long proved an inadequate method. The atomic number 
is determined by the number of nuclei or positive charges. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 105 


These remain constant so long as the atom exists, while 
the negative charges vary. Thus hydrogen, the first ele- 
ment, carries one positive charge; helium, the second, car- 
ries two positive charges; lithium, the third, carries three 
positive charges, and so on up to uranium the ninety- 
second element, which carries ninety-two positive charges. 
There are at this writing (1924) four vacant places in the 
atomic series. In its neutral or unelectrified state an atom 
carries an equal number of positive and negative charges 
or satellite electrons. Thus hydrogen in its neutral state 
carries one satellite, helium two satellites, lithium three, 
and uranium ninety-two.** 

The arrangement or orbits of these electrons with ref- 
erence to their nuclei is the interesting problem both for 
chemical and physical purposes, though our knowledge is 
in its infancy. In general there is agreement that electrons 
exist In various orbits or energy levels. For explaining 
chemical change, the outer orbit is of chief significance. 
If an atom is deficient one electron in its outer orbit, it 
will combine under suitable conditions with an atom hav- 
ing an extra electron in its outer orbit. There will then 
be exchange, or rather flow of energy from superabun- 
dance to deficiency. But in chemical synthesis, while the 
extra electron enters the deficient orbit, it also figures in 
the orbit of its own atom. It thus establishes a bond. 
The same principle is illustrated where an element is short 
two electrons in its outer ring and combines with an atom 
having two extra, where the bond would consist of two 

11T have said nothing about the electrons and nuclei, boxed within 
the interior of the atom. “The nuclei of all the ninety-two elements 
are probably made up of hydrogen nuclei, of which there are in uranium 
two hundred and thirty-eight (the atomic weight of the element), but 
only ninety-two of these ‘have no lids on’ and are neutralized by ninety- 
two outer revolving electrons. Uranium is the last and ninety-second 
element of the list. . . . Elements which, having the same number of 
‘open boxes,’ have the same proverties, but have different numbers of 
‘closed boxes’ and therefore different weights, are called isotopes.” 
Science and Religion, by J. Arthur Thomson, New York, 1925, Appendix 
2 by David Landsborough Thomson, p. 266. The discovery of isotopes 
—elements alike in structural characteristics but differing in weight— 


seems to make it possible to explain the discrepancy between the order 
based upon weight and that based upon structure. 


106 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


electrons. Thus a simple explanation is found for chem- 
ical synthesis and valency. But chemical synthesis is only 
an example of the law that all change is exchange, that all 
synthesis is sharing, whether it is chemical sharing or the 
sharing of common interests in the bond of society. Atoms 
which have no deficiency and no abundance are self-con- 
tained or inert. These also have their analogues in human 
society. Why we speak of the state of an atom, when it 
has a deficiency of electrons, as positively electrified, and 
of the state of an atom, when it has a superfluity of elec- 
trons, as negatively electrified is one of the anomalies of 
language. The shifting of electrons from one orbit or 
level to another is a problem of great interest to physics. 
For physics explains absorption, the gulping in of energy, 
as the shifting from an inner orbit to an outer orbit, 
while it accounts for radiation of energy, the emitting of 
the waves that give us our spectral bands, as the shrink- 
ing from an outer to an inner orbit within the atom. This 
shifting is finite and indicated by integral numbers. Those 
who conceive an electron as an ether stress would say that 
it is a shifting from one equilibrium to another in the 
ether. But the language of electrons is in favour at 
present. 

When science is thus able to arrange the elements in a 
structural hierarchy with recurring periodicities, and to 
account for physical and chemical changes on the basis of 
the dynamic complexities of such an arrangement, it is 
difficult to escape the feeling that the atoms stand in some 
sort of genetic relation in nature. We can not say that 
they are arithmetically compounded of hydrogen atoms, 
because each atom has its unique pattern, but at any rate 
hydrogen occupies the first place in the synthetic process. 
In the radioactive elements we have evidence of an in- 
verse process of evolution—the dissolution of more com- 
plex elements through various stages of uranium and 
radium to helium and lead. Here we have a spontaneous 
alchemy of elements, though from more complex to simpler 
elements. Moreover, Rutherford and others have suc- 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 107 


ceeded in breaking down artificially such elements as nitro- 
gen into hydrogen and helium atoms, by bombarding them 
with the so-called alpha rays—the spontaneously disso- 
ciated nuclei—of uranium with their enormous energy. 
True, the human chemist has not been able to synthesize 
what he has been able to dissolve, but what about the 
genius of nature? If radioactive elements are breaking 
down in the cosmic laboratory, there must be a law of 
compensation or there would be no radioactive elements 
to break down. 

It is not necessary to suppose that radioactive ele- 
ments in other parts of the cosmos are limited to those 
which we have identified upon our earth. 


Perhaps in the extreme conditions of pressure and 
temperature prevailing in the deep interiors of stars 
the process of disintegration is greatly accelerated and 
is going on in all substances.** 


It is generally believed now by astronomers that the 
enormous supply of heat generated by stars is due in part 
to the liberation of sub-atomic energy. According to 
Eddington the immense internal heat of the giant stars 
causes the satellite negative electrons within the constel- 
lation of the atom to be detached from their positive 
nucleus, thus mutilating the atom, if not completely dis- 
integrating it."* The origin of the atom is a problem still 
waiting solution. But we may be sure that if elements 
disintegrate, they are also reconstructed, and that this 
does not happen by chance but in accordance with cosmic 
control; else they would not reappear in the various parts 
of the cosmos with such regularity and universality as 
they do. It is true that we are not entitled to say on the 
evidence available that the elements are present in the 
same proportion everywhere and that there are no new 

12. R. Moulton, An Introduction to Astronomy, Revised Edition, 
1920, p. 535. 


13 See A. S. Eddington’s article, “The Interior of a Star,” the Scien- 
tific Monthly, Vol. XVII, p. 255 ff. 


108 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


elements anywhere. There is at least one element in the 
sun’s corona which has not been identified on the earth. 
Nor can we assert dogmatically that the elements remain 
constant throughout the entire history of a star, since 
we know of elements which disintegrate within our own 
solar system. It would seem, however, that there are 
definite cycles repeating themselves in the main in all the 
worlds, according to a law of cosmic synthesis. While the 
constitution of atomic matter seems to be the same every- 
where, it is not necessary to suppose that life histories of 
various worlds are mere repetitions of histories elsewhere. 
The conditions must vary in various histories, and there- 
fore the creative adaptations must vary. We have no rea- 
son to assume mere uniformity in either time or space. If 
there is give and take between different worlds in the 
cosmos, so that the past history of one part of the cosmos 
is conserved in another, with varying repetition according 
to the unique adaptation of each to the rest of the cosmos, 
then cosmic evolution, viewed from any one history, may 
well be cumulative, and the recurrence or rhythm may be 
spiral instead of circular. 

We find it congenial, on logical grounds, at any rate, to 
assume that matter with its complicated structure is an 
evolution, the result of interaction. We know that ma- 
terial energy left to itself tends to a level of diffuse motion. 
If we conceive matter in isolation from the hierarchical 
structure of levels in the universe, we have chaos—certain 
primal entities such as electrons, darting hither and thither, 
without organization. We have an image of such a state 
in the Brownian movement. Such a diffuse level as the 
final goal of energy is implied in the second law of thermo- 
dynamics. It is that in every transaction of energy some 
energy escapes or becomes unavailable, and that in the 
course of time all energy must reach the diffuse state. But 
since the loss is finite, the universe should have run its 
course and reached the dead level. The second law of 
thermodynamics assumes levels as existing somehow. It 
merely emphasizes the empirical fact that so far as our 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 109 


control is concerned, energy tends to equal distribution 
and hence to disappearance as available energy. But if 
the cosmos is self-sustaining, there must be a running up 
process to compensate for the running down process; and 
the levels within the cosmos as a whole must be eternal. 
Matter of itself could never have emerged from its hypo- 
thetical diffuse state to produce levels. Chaos must have 
remained chaos except for the impulse from a cosmic 
constitution which contains the necessary complexity 
within itself. The organization of matter must be due 
to the interaction of matter with pre-existent levels of 
organization. In the last analysis the diversity in the struc- 
ture of matter is due to its interaction with the cosmic 
constitution. The elements of matter are not neutral; 
they possess motion and inertia. Else no interactions 
could exist and therefore no evolution. Evolution is a 
compound motion which implies the motion of the con- 
stituent elements plus their curvature within the specific 
field of control and, in the last analysis, within the field of 
cosmic control. 

The fact is that matter does not exist as mere matter. 
Chaos is a mere abstraction of our thought which lays 
hold of one aspect of change, the running down process, 
without taking account of the compensatory aspect, the 
running up process. Matter always exists in various stages 
of organization. It never escapes the control of the cosmic 
field, though it escapes from a particular control for the 
time being. Inorganic matter is controlled for the time 
being in a particular series by living matter and enters 
into the organization of living matter. But when the 
particular cycle is complete and the particular control 
ceases, matter tends to return to the inorganic level, 
though under certain conditions the stored energy may 
remain for ages. Witness the strata of coal. There is 
always the centrifugal tendency of matter which is curved 
for the time being into a particular cosmic field. But 
the particular rhythm runs its course and so do the com- 
plex rhythms which hold in control the particular rhythms. 


110 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


Worlds are born, grow to maturity, and die, but the cosmic 
control is constant. Everything evolves except the law 
of the whole. 

Matter, then, as we know it, owes its organization and 
definite properties to its being part of a cosmic system of 
hierarchical control. The marvellous structure of the 
atom and molecule, the periodic law of the elements, the 
mathematical order of nature which we strive to decipher, 
the symmetry and beauty of matter, its dynamic adap- 
tiveness to enter into higher systems of control in the 
evolution of worlds—all is due to its moving within the 
field of cosmic control, to its interaction with the larger 
universe. Matter in the abstract is capable of no habits 
of cumulative duration or creative synthesis. It owes 
these capacities to its organization within cosmic control. 
Just as in the hierarchy of the organism, the reflex centres 
owe their definiteness of function—their graduated and 
localized response to stimuli—to the control exercised by 
the higher levels of the cerebrum, and lapse to the diffuse 
level of the mass-reflex when this connection is broken, 
so matter in the cosmos owes its definiteness of function, 
its mathematical laws, to its existing as an integral part 
of the cosmic hierarchy of control, which never lapses, 
though particular controls lapse. The interactions in 
nature are never between matter in the abstract and 
higher levels in the abstract. The exchanges of energy 
in nature are between different levels of organization and 
different histories of organization where each part, from 
an atom to a solar system, moves with a history and or- 
ganization of its own which condition its transactions 
within the cosmic field, its osmosis and dialysis, its iInduc- 
tive capacity, its creative synthesis and stages of develop- 
ment. The abstraction of matter and the abstraction 
of system would remain barren if conceived in isolation, 
as Plato tried to conceive them. The transactions in 
reality are between concrete systems, between organiza- 
tions of matter at various levels. We do not know of 
any form in the abstract, or any matter in the abstract, 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 111 


except within the field of abstract thought. But here 
they are barren. 

Cosmic interaction means not merely the creative con- 
tribution of the higher levels to the lower, but also of the 
lower to the higher. Asin the human organism the skele- 
tal structure, the assimilative, respiratory, and circulatory 
systems and the various centres of reflex control are a 
necessary basis for the higher level of intelligence and con- 
tribute their share to it while borrowing guidance from 
it, so in the evolution of the earth and in the cosmic 
economy generally we may say that if body without soul 
is blind, soul without body is an abstraction. Matter 
needs form no more than form needs matter. In a cosmos 
where the levels of matter always exist in integral relation 
with the levels of soul, body is not blind nor soul lame. 
Without either matter or form, organization and evolution 
would be impossible. 

In the human economy, we know that levels coexist 
as integral parts of the whole, and that higher levels can 
guide lower levels while lower levels can contribute to 
the sustenance, stability, and mechanism of higher levels. 
Can we conceive such an integral control within the cos- 
mos? We must remember that human nature is part and 
product of the cosmos. Hence there can be such inte- 
gration, and there must be to account for the evolution 
of human nature. Do lower levels sometimes become 
dissociated from the control for a period, as cancer cells 
escape from the control of the organism, until the diseased 
part is eliminated and its energy worked up into more 
adapted synthesis? Evidently since cancer growth and 
other excrescences, physical and moral, are parts of the 
cosmos, it must be that the parts by virtue of their own 
impulse and inertia sometimes fail of adaptation and must 
be eliminated by cosmic selection. No part is a mere 
function of the cosmic whole. If the lower levels were a 
simple function of the higher, we should indeed have per- 
fect imitation, perfect uniformity. We should have no 
discrepancy, no tragedy, but neither should we have crea- 


112 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


tive evolution or individuality. The relation, however, is 
one of interaction, not of one-sided dependence. Parts 
sometimes lag in cosmic readjustment. Sometimes they 
become stereotyped and are unable to respond to changing 
conditions. They may fail to reach an equilibrium among 
themselves. Hence an evolution built upon various his- 
tories and their consequent need for creative adaptation 
must necessarily bring conflict and tragedy as part of the 
process. 

The theory of cosmic interaction as outlined above is 
logically convincing in its main features. We may be 
sure that in a self-sustaining cosmos there must be an 
upward as well as a downward path and that therefore 
the levels of energy are eternal. We may be sure too 
that new characters, forms and qualitative levels do not 
emerge in our geological history by chance, but that they 
must be due somehow to the interaction of our earth with 
a dynamic constitution of the cosmos which possesses the 
necessary stratification. But can we form any conception 
in detail of the transactions of our earth with the cosmos 
which would make our theory plausible? We have seen 
that the cosmos consists of various worlds in various stages 
of evolution. Within the cosmos, worlds, like individuals, 
have their rhythmic span. ‘The pioneers of Greek thought 
already had an intuition of coexisting worlds running their 
course within the whole. Of this we have now sufficient 
evidence. We may be sure that it is not an accident that 
there coexist various cosmic histories in various stages. 
And we may be sure that in cosmic evolution generally, 
as well as in social evolution, creative advance is due to 
the fructifying of lower levels of development by higher 
levels. But can we conceive any effective interaction be- 
tween such world histories? Unless we can discover an 
efficient cause linking the various worlds together, the 
conception of cosmic interaction must remain theoretical, 
however congenial to reason. The mere fact that various 
levels of evolution coexist in the cosmos does not prove 
that they can interact, even if we could be sure that all 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 113 


the levels always coexist from the lowest to the highest 
stage of development. And we cannot be sure of that, 
unless we can conceive these worlds as linked in an efficient 
relationship. Our sense of cosmic isolation is not easily 
broken through. We are appalled by the indifference of 
space, and our imagination stands baffled by the magni- 
tudes of stellar distances. While we can take account of 
interactions and creative adaptations within our geologi- 
cal milieu and history, how can we make the idea of 
creative adaptation convincing on a cosmic scale? What 
mechanism can we show for such interaction that would 
make it plausible? 


The Mechanism of Cosmic Energy Exchange 

The problem of discovering the method of energy ex- 
change over the vast distances of cosmic space is a stu- 
pendous one and will require not only patient investiga- 
tion but great creative imagination. The conception of 
the relation of world histories to one another in the cosmos 
is in much the same position as that of gravitational facts 
before Newton and that of biological facts before Darwin. 
We have a mass of descriptive data, but we have hitherto 
lacked an efficient principle to link the data together. But 
we must make the most of such hints as science furnishes. 
We know that the parts of our universe are not actually 
isolated in space. They are linked by the gravitational 
field and the electromagnetic field, whatever may be the 
relation between these fields. But we must believe that 
the parts of the cosmos are linked in time as well as in 
space. That means that the history of one part of the 
cosmos has reference to the history of another part of the 
cosmos. The events in one world history are not indifferent 
to the events in another world history, but exercise control 
upon that history in determining its course in time, as 
_worlds within the gravitation field exercise control upon 
one another’s course in space. If we must treat the earth 
as a unit from the point of view of gravitation control in 
space, so we must treat geological history as a unit from 


114 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the point of view of the backward and forward looking 
control in time, bearing in mind all the while that the 
temporal view, the creative advance of nature, includes 
the spatial as a cross-section of itself. 

We must conceive the cosmos, in the last analysis, not 
merely as a space equilibrium but as a space-time equi- 
librium, meaning by time here not mere clock-time but 
the creative passing of nature or history. It is absurd to 
suppose that the creative passing of nature is a function 
of clock-time. That our universe is in a real sense an 
equilibrium we are bound to believe on the basis of scien- 
tific evidence, direct and indirect. It is a necessary im- 
plication from the facts of science. We must postulate 
in electrodynamics that every electron has one equilibrium 
and only one, and that it owes this equilibrium to the geo- 
metrical structure of the cosmic field or, if we prefer, to 
cosmic curvature. We have also come to realize that the 
material world must be regarded as a closed world. With- 
out entering upon the question of the finitude of the world, 
we must conceive the material world as having such an 
energy curvature from part to part that no matter or 
energy escapes into an infinite void. This follows logically 
from the self-sustaining character of our universe, for if 
matter or energy kept escaping, the world could not keep 
running. It is rendered plausible, moreover, by the 
newly-discovered curvature of light within a gravitational 
field. : 

But the conception of our universe as a dynamic equi- 
librium has further and more significant implications. If 
the cosmos is once conceived as one closed control, then 
not only must the total energy be constant and all the 
parts down to the electron be conceived as in a state of 
equilibrium at any one moment, but the parts must be 
in equilibrium in time as well as space, so that a varia- 
tion of the course of nature in one part must have com- 
pensations in other parts. A dynamic equilibrium means, 
therefore, not merely that as the quantity or intensity 
of energy varies in any one part of the cosmos there must 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 115 


be corresponding variation in intensity in other parts of 
the cosmic field, but it means also that the variation of 
phases and types of organization in one part will tend to 
produce corresponding variation in other parts. As the 
intensity levels are constant in the whole though vary- 
ing from part to part, so the phases and levels of organiza- 
tion are constant in the whole though varying from part 
to part. That means that while the parts vary in in- 
tensity, the maximum level of intensity and the minimum 
level of intensity and the variations in between are con- 
stant for the cosmos as a whole. Else the quantity of 
energy would not be constant. It means also that, while 
the phases and levels of organization vary from part to 
part of the cosmos, all the phases and levels are constant 
or coexist eternally for the cosmos as a whole. This fol- 
lows from the conception of a cosmic field of control. 
Every part of the cosmos is determined in its energy, 
phases, properties, and organization by adjustment with 
other parts within the cosmic field, which is itself de- 
termined by the total adjustment of parts to each other. 
But if every part is determined as regards its energy, 
phases, and properties by adjustment within a dynamic 
equilibrium of multiple worlds, then it must be clear that 
no part evolves of itself. The history of our earth is 
what it is by virtue of its space-time relation to the dy- 
namic equilibrium of the cosmic whole, and without taking 
account of this relation, the energy system of the earth 
is unintelligible. Nothing moves in isolation. Everything 
moves in fields controlled, in the last analysis, by the total 
field. The conception of a cosmic dynamic equilibrium 
weaves the worlds together into a cosmic plot. Once we 
see that the course of the movement of the part, in time 
as well as space, is determined by adjustment with other 
parts within the curvature of the whole, that the quantity 
of energy, the phases, properties, and organization of any 
part exist by adjustment or adaptation within the total 
equilibrium, we have a key to geological evolution, the 
evolution of which we know most and which interests us 


116 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


most. For the conception of a cosmic dynamic equl- 
librium is not merely a quantitative conception, but funda- 
mentally a conception of structure. To use mathematical 
language, the geometrical structure of any one space-time 
field or history is determined by adjustment with the struc- 
ture of other space-time fields or histories. In the last 
analysis, the conception of a cosmic dynamic equilibrium 
is a conception of structural equilibrium. At first glance 
the significant fact seems to be that the structural aspect 
of history varies with the intensity of the space-time field. 
But closer examination shows that the variation of cosmic 
intensities is determined by the structure of the cosmic 
field. A cosmic field, such as our solar system or our earth, 
does not develop a certain dynamic structure because of 
the variation in intensity within the field, but the variation 
in intensity within the particular field is due to cosmic 
curvature. The state of our earth or our solar system is 
controlled by adjustment with the cosmic equilibrium. 
The energy of our system pulsates with the throb of the 
cosmos. The earth or sun contracts or expands with the 
heart beats of the cosmic system. It is to structural ad- 
justment with this system with its various space-time 
energy levels that our earth system owes its direction in 
space-time. 

Everything, no doubt, could be seen to follow from the 
law of dynamic equilibrium could we follow it in detail. 
For if the universe is self-moving and self-maintaining, 
then not only must it be a closed system, curved on itself 
so that nothing can escape into the void, but there must 
be a balance of exchanges and rhythms within the system, 
so that the shifting of potentials and the shifting of struc- 
ture in any history is controlled by adjustment within the 
cosmic field. Nothing, we have seen, moves in isolation, 
but everything moves in fields, controlled, in the last an- 
alysis, by the total field. But our knowledge is limited 
and our imagination is weak and our prejudices are strong. 
We must therefore try to make the problem concrete by 
approaching it from a more familiar angle, using analogy 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 117 


to help our abstract logic. We shall use the analogy of 
the human organism, approaching the macrocosm from 
the microcosm. Since the human organism is itself part 
of the cosmos, the relation is more than analogy. We 
may find in the economy of the organism an image of the 
economy of the cosmos. If our imagination finds it difh- 
cult to grasp how vastly separated worlds can have any 
commerce with each other so far as qualitative phases and 
levels are concerned, we can see in the concrete the inter- 
action between the parts of the organism. 

We know that the human individual is a complex system 
consisting of interacting levels of energy, higher levels 
controlling lower levels and in turn presupposing these as 
instrumental to the life of the organism as a whole. How 
is interaction between distant parts of the organism pos- 
sible? Recent scientific discoveries have thrown a vast 
deal of light upon the mechanism of energy exchange and 
control within the organism. 


Sherrington points out that in higher animals there 
exist two chief methods by which the various chem- 
ical and physiological activities are integrated or made 
to work’ in harmony, namely (1) integration by 
transport of chemical substances (usually special 
metabolic products) from region to region, chiefly in 
the blood stream. This is seen in the effects of 
the various growth-determining hormones (thyroid, 
pituitary, ovary, etc.) or of the hormones determining 
glandular secretion or rate of respiration. And (2) 
there is integration by transmission of physiological 
influence, excitatory and inhibitory, to a distance 
through the living protoplasm without material trans- 
port between the regions; the chief example of this 
type of process is nervous transmission. ‘The nervous 
system is the chief integrating and co-ordinating 
system in higher animals; nervous transmission, how- 
ever, is merely a specialized form of a type of trans- 
mission present everywhere in protoplasm. If the 


118 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


metabolic processes underlying (e.g.) muscular con- 
traction can be thus controlled at a distance, it is not 
dificult to believe that those underlying growth can 
be similarly controlled. This mode of activity has 
been called physiological distance action, after the 
analogy of chemical distance action, and our problem 
is to determine its physico-chemical nature. One of 
its most characteristic manifestations is seen in the 
transmission of growth-inhibiting and other formative 
and correlating influence in growing and developing 
organisms. * 

In the higher organisms, then, we have an illustration 
of the interaction of parts at a distance through the trans- 
mission of energy patterns of two types, viz., chemical 
secretions from various glands, which are transmitted © 
throughout the body mostly through the medium of the 
blood, and vito-electrical patterns which are carried by 
nerves and also by direct protoplasmic induction. The 
relative proportion, size and structure of the parts of the 
organism, as well as their executive relation within the be- 
haviour of the organism, is determined by interaction made 
possible by such distance messengers within the organism. 
If such control exists within the organism is it not possible 
that the growth of the organism is subject to control from 
outside by similar influences? 


If the biolectric currents have a direct influence on 
growth, we should expect that electric currents led 
into the growing systems from outside sources would 
have a similar influence. 


That this is so is indicated by experimental evidence, 
which shows that the artificially-controlled electric cur- 
rent, not merely in the lower organisms but in the higher 
plants as well, can influence the formative growth-move- 
ments in a polar manner. 


** The quotations in this paragraph are from an article on “Growth 
in Living and Non-living Systems,” by Ralph 8. Lillie, the Scientific 
Monthly, Vol. XIV, p. 127, with some rearrangement. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 119 


If the growth processes in living organisms are thus 
subject to artificial electrical control, it seems rea- 
sonable to infer that the natural or physiological 
methods of control in normal growth and develop- 
ment are also in large part electrical. The biolec- 
tric currents would thus become essential formative 
factors, just as they are essential factors in excitation 
and transmission; organic polarity, as Matthews sug- 
gested, would become electrical polarity.*” 


It is reasonable to suppose that vital processes of growth 
as well as inorganic processes are influenced by external 
energy patterns. It seems that the lateral symmetry of 
plants is due to the action of light, while their up and 
down direction is probably due to gravitation. In the last 
analysis, must we not seek the explanation alike of the 
life history of the individual organism with its dynamic 
patterns and of the life history of the earth with its com- 
plexity, in the interaction of the energy systems of the 
earth with the cosmic environment? Is it not reasonable 
to suppose that the cosmic equilibrium is knit together, as 
is the equilibrium of the particular system of the organism, 
by energy patterns communicated at a distance from cos- 
mic history to cosmic history within the cosmic whole, the 
whole being a superorganic unity? We have, at any rate, 
an analogy in the higher organisms of how the process of 
evolution in any particular part of the cosmos, such as 
our earth, may be stimulated and controlled by influences 
from other parts of the cosmos. The creative response by 
the part, however, would vary with its history and cumula- 
tive structure as the amceba responds to light but does not 
see light because of its lack of necessary differentiation 
and organization. 

We must grant, I think, that all matter in all its types 
and stages of evolution—inorganic matter, organic matter, 
minded matter—radiates typical energy patterns, express- 
ing not only the intensity of the structures from which they 


aeLbzd pp: 129; 130; 


120 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


originate but their unique organization, just as within the 
control of the organism neural messengers from the vari- 
ous centres of the nervous system and chemical messengers 
from the various glands carry not only a certain quantity 
of energy but formative patterns from their sources to the 
various parts of the organism. But it is still difficult to 
conceive how vastly separated world histories can have 
any effective commerce so far as qualitative levels and 
phases are concerned. That there is an integral gravita- 
tional and electromagnetic control within the cosmos we 
have now become accustomed to believe, though the dis- 
tances for effective control are just as vast in the realm 
of quantitative control as in the realm of qualitative con- 
trol. Our imagination is aided, however, by new dis- 
coverles in science as regards quanta communication of 
energy. 

On the undulatory theory of energy-communication, it 
is true that energy patterns from far parts of the cosmos 
would be too spent to exercise any effective control. But 
it has recently been discovered** that between wave radia- 
tions of energy, such as light and X-rays, and electron 
radiations of atomic matter there is a quantitative 
relation. This means not only that wave radiation falling 
on atomic matter can cause the ejection of electrons, and, 
vice versa, that electrons falling on matter can cause ether 
waves, but that the wave radiation can communicate a 
certain quantum of energy irrespective of the distance 
it has travelled. The velocity of the electron, started by 
the impact of the wave pulse, depends upon the wave 
length only, not on its amplitude. And the wave length 
is constant for any distance. It is as though energy 
travelled in parcels instead of by undulations, though it 
seems to be carried by undulations. Radiations of matter 
in distant parts of the cosmos may therefore start char- 
acteristic waves in the ether and these in turn may deliver 
their message through their action upon matter at distant 


76 See article, “Electrons and Ether Waves,” by Sir William Bragg, 
the Scientific Monthly, Vol. XIV, pp. 153-160. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 121 


parts of the cosmos and there set going characteristic radi- 
ations of matter. We know, too, that one form of energy 
can act as carrier for another form which itself might not 
be effective except for short distances. Thus in the radio 
telephone, the voice and characteristic form of expression 
with the meaning pattern involved is communicated by 
means of a powerful current of electricity to ether waves, 
which in turn deliver the unique patterns to the listener 
equipped with the proper instrument at the other end. 
The message thus carried sets going characteristic emo- 
tions, thoughts, and actions in the listener in accordance 
with his mental history and structure. As both the speaker 
and the listener are part of a common social field with its 
traditions, there is a certain pre-established adaptedness 
between them which could not occur by accident. An 
Englishman does not by accident understand Chinese, 
with the tradition which it implies. 

As in the terrestrial field, so in the cosmic field various 
centres send out: waves with resulting interference. In 
fact, it is the phenomena of interference in the case of 
radiant energy like light which furnish the strongest ground 
for believing in some sort of undulatory theory. Some 
wave lengths are reinforced and some are diminished by 
interference on the way. In the case of reinforcement 
of the transmitting waves, the original impulses may reach 
the earth with considerable intensity, as is the case in the 
reinforcement of wireless waves. A sun wave might rein- 
force a wave from a distant star with corresponding aug- 
mentation. But the significant aspect in the relation is 
the wave length, so far as the velocity of the disattached 
electron is concerned. The amplitude or strength of the 
stimulating wave has to do not with the velocity, but 
with the number of electrons disattached; but of course 
the number would add to the effectiveness of the wave. 

To make our illustration more concrete: Suppose evolu- 
tion in any world history, as is the case with geological 
history, has reached the stage of organic matter. Organic 
matter will send forth radiations characteristic of organic 


122 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


matter and of the particular type of organic matter. These 
radiations will be taken up by the electromagnetic medium 
and delivered at another part of the cosmos where matter 
is encountered. It may not there give rise to a life 
response, any more than light striking the protoplasm of 
the amoeba is responded to as light, but it will act and it 
will give to matter an impetus towards life, and when 
favourable conditions have arisen, the creative adaptation 
of life will result. The same could be illustrated in the 
case of intelligence. Minded matter sends out radiations 
characteristic of mind and of the particular type of mind, 
as we all know, in human communication, whether the 
communication is mediated by air waves or by wireless 
waves. Every such radiation of minded matter is sent 
out into the cosmos, however mediated, and eventually 
reaches matter elsewhere and acts upon this matter. It 
may not be responded to as mind, but it gives an impulse 
to matter which may in the ages give rise to a character- 
istic response of mind to mind. Whether it is the organ- 
ized inorganic elements with their various types or organic 
matter with its various types or minded matter with its 
various types, it holds that the organization of matter is 
a creative response to organized matter, and a particular 
type of organized matter is a creative response to a par- 
ticular type of organized matter, be it inorganic matter or 
organic matter or minded matter. This is the meaning of 
cosmic interaction in the concrete. 

This does not mean that any one cycle of the cosmos is 
a mere repetition of a cycle elsewhere, for the motion, 
quantity, proportion and duration of matter are not the 
same everywhere. The creative response of any part 
depends not merely on the stimulus, but on the milieu of 
the part responding, and this depends upon the history, 
composition, and structure of the part. We can see this 
illustrated in social communication among human beings. 
They may be under the influence of the same customs 
and traditions. They all have certain resemblances in 
chemical composition and in the biological traits of 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 123 


heredity. But they are never exactly the same and may 
not respond exactly in the same way to the same stimull. 
They differ in the range of response and in the quality of 
response. Only a few respond by a significant creative 
adaptation which is the beginning of a new series of 
adaptations. The sun shines upon the just and the unjust, 
but they do not all respond in the same way. Cosmic 
influences, cosmic energy patterns covering the whole 
range of evolution are communicated to all parts of the 
cosmos, but the responses are various according to the 
stage of adaptation of the various parts. But, in any case, 
the influences act and by their combined impetus steer the 
particular cosmic history toward creative adaptation. 
Thus in the history of the earth the various types and 
stages of life and intelligence have emerged as creative 
adaptations to the impulses of the cosmic environment. 
And we have no reason to believe that the evolution of 
the earth has run its course. If there is a nisus toward 
divinity, it 1s because divinity, the supreme organization 
of harmony, beauty, goodness, and love, is active through- 
out the cosmos, stimulating the evolution of every part 
in the direction of divinity. As light stimulates towards 
the adaptation to seeing light, so divinity stimulates 
towards communion with itself. Light beats upon our 
earth-born beings, and permeates them, that it may stimu- 
late in them the organization to see light; life beats upon 
them to awaken them to receive life; thought acts to 
create the response of creative thought; beauty acts to 
produce the creative response to beauty; God acts eternally 
to produce the creative response to God. 


Materialism, Idealism, and Cosmic Interaction 
We have been blinded to the relation of our geological 
evolution to the cosmos by the crude materialism which 
has hitherto beset our modern scientific thinking. Anxious 
to get away as far as possible from the arbitrary fiat of the 
creationism of theological speculation, science has gone to 
the other extreme and treated geological evolution as a 


124 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


thing apart from the cosmos and determined by blind 
chance. It has extolled the potencies of matter and pro- 
ceeded on the supposition that the order of geological evo- 
lution with its complex variety of pattern is the result of 
chance variation and natural selection. It has been un- 
mindful of the fact that it has merely substituted arbitrary 
Chance for an arbitrary God. ‘The emergence of new 
characters, forms, and levels has been just as miraculous 
as before. No explanation of evolution as an orderly tem- 
poral process has been furnished. The theory of cosmic 
interaction and creative adaptation of the part to the 
structure of the whole gives the rationale of evolution. 
The individual part responds to the impulse from without 
according to its history and pattern structure. Selection, 
inhibition, integration and response—osmosis, induction, 
intuition—are conditioned at any one stage by the unique 
dynamic organization of the part. Hence we have the 
recognition of individuality and a priori synthesis. But 
the part is what it is because of its long history of creative 
adaptation to the dynamic structure of the whole. Hence 
we have the recognition of unity. Leibnitz and Spinoza 
both have their say. Finally, no part can survive which 
does not enter in some degree into rapport with the whole. 
Hence the reality. of natural selection, the contribution of 
Darwin. i 

The details of cosmic interaction await ages of scientific 
investigation. Of one thing I feel sure: no properties, 
forms, or levels emerge in the history of our earth without 
the guidance of a pre-existent cosmic structure. Matter 
behaves as it does, it is capable of being understood as 
having logical structure because it is subject to control 
from higher levels. Matter in the course of its trial and 
error process of adaptation comes to assume new structure 
and functions under the organizing control of the cosmic 
field. It comes to express itself in new pattern responses 
to the complex order of the environment. Thus we have 
the periodic law of the elements with their graded scale of 
complexity and degrees of freedom. Thus we have the 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 125 


ordered quantitative determinations of matter, statable 
in mathematical Jaws. Thus we have levels superimposed 
upon levels in any one series, with qualitatively new con- 
trol and new functions, organic, neural, mental—and what- 
ever other levels there may be. The organization of our 
earth into a system fitted for life, the appearance of levels 
of life, intelligence, creative imagination, the intuition of 
divinity—these are possible because there are levels of 
life, intelligence, creative imagination, divinity in the 
cosmos. And these organizations of energy are somehow 
in active intercourse with our earth. From the point of 
view of the whole, the actuality is prior to the potentiality. 

In emphasizing the rédle of cosmic control, I do not 
mean to minimize the role of matter. Matter, even in its 
most elementary form of primal constituents, must furnish 
the raw material of organization. We cannot conceive the 
graded series of the evolution of structures, with their 
conservation of the past into the present and with their 
hierarchical levels, without matter. We know evolution 
and levels, from the lowest level of organization to the 
highest, through matter. Life, thought, beauty, God must 
be incarnate in matter to be effective in the cosmos. There 
can be no energy exchange from one type of energy to 
another except through the action upon matter. There 
is nothing degraded or evil about matter, as the mystics 
have always maintained. Nor is matter non-being in the 
sense of being unreal. It is through the organization of 
matter that reality, as we know it, has its existence. Deny 
the reality of matter and we have the abstraction of mere 
form—an abstraction of our reason, eternal but ineffec- 
tive. But if matter is essential to cosmic interaction and 
evolution, we must also remember that matter by itself 
is an impotent abstraction. It would remain in its state 
of diffuse motion. It could not organize itself. It could 
not raise itself to new levels. There must be a plus factor. 
This we have found in a hierarchical cosmic constitution 
within which matter interacts, and through impulses from 
which it rises by creative adaptation to various levels of 


126 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


organization. Matter dissociated from higher levels of 
control tends ever to run down to the diffuse state, and 
would so run down if it were not for the control of cosmic 
genius which utilizes it in ever new combinations through 
the pattern impulses communicated from the whole. 

It must be clear now that there could be no evolution 
in a monistic world, whether it be conceived as matter or 
spirit. There could be no levels in a world of matter, 
because matter by itself could not rise above itself. But 
neither could there be evolution of spirit by itself. An 
absolute spirit cannot degrade itself into matter, any more 
than mere matter can rise to spirit. If we conceive evolu- 
tion as one series proceeding of itself from the lowest to 
the highest level, it makes no difference whether we con- 
ceive the lowest stage in material or psychological terms, 
whether we call it blind matter or blind will, we can never 
make such a stuff organize itself into new forms and levels 
by itself. We can never make chance account for 
organization. 

Since psychological monism has been unable to account 
for the existence and characteristics of the lower levels, 
such as those of inorganic matter, it has naturally tried to 
get rid of them by treating them as appearances or as due 
to finite points of view. Says Royce: 


The vast contrast which we have been taught to 
make between material and ‘conscious processes 
depends merely upon the accidents of the human 


point of view. . . . We have no right to speak of 
really unconscious Nature, but only of uncommunica- 
tive Nature. . . . In case of Nature in general, as 


in case of the particular portions of Nature known as 
our fellow-men, we are dealing with phenomenal signs 
of a vast conscious process, whose relation to Time 
varies greatly, but whose general characters are 
throughout the same. From this point of view, evo- 
lution would be a series of processes suggesting to us 
various degrees and types of conscious processes. 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 127 


These processes in the case of so-called inorganic 
matter are very remote from us.*’ 


Just how we can account for grades of psychological proc- 
esses within one perfect logical unity of experience is not 
easy to see. But in any case the psychological monist is 
bound to project his universe on one level. There can be 
no grades or degrees of reality from the point of view of 
the absolute experience. They are merely grades to us 
finites, though just how the absolute unity could appear 
as grades to us, its integral parts—synthesized into its 
perfect unity and having no other existence—is difficult 
to see. For the absolute unity of experience is precisely 
what we know when we know ourselves clearly and dis- 
tinctly. There can be no difference in kind between the 
finite individual and the absolute, for this would preclude 
the finite knowing the absolute. How there can be a 
difference in degree is one of the irrational aspects of a 
theory which claims to be completely rational. The 
dilemma of psychological monism is that it must either 
insist upon the eternal unity and perfection of reality in 
terms of human experience—and then evolution becomes 
mere appearance; or it must try to evolve the higher 
grades of reality from some lower unconscious stuff; but 
then it cannot account for evolution, for it then becomes 
indistinguishable from materialism. It furnishes no cause 
of evolution. 

The essential difference between materialism and psy- 
chological idealism is that materialism emphasizes the 
lower levels of reality—the levels of inorganic matter— 
and tries to derive the higher levels as mere functions of 
the lower; while psychological idealism selects some 
higher level, such as thought, and tries to derive the lower 
levels as functions somehow of this. Both fail to do jus- 
tice to the complexity of the real world. Both fail to 
account for evolution with its emergence of new characters, 
forms, and levels. The theory of cosmic interaction can 


17 World and Individual, Vol. II, p. 224, seqg., quoted by Dean Inge. 


128 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


embody the aspects emphasized by both materialism and 
idealism. The claims of materialism are duly met if it 
appears that matter and the properties of matter are 
eternal in the economy of the universe, even though we 
must hold that matter is not the whole of reality, nor 
does it exist in isolation, nor are its organization and prop- 
erties in the whole those of matter in isolation. ‘The 
claims of idealism are given due recognition if it is shown 
that life, thought, the sense of beauty, communion with 
God, are eternal and intrinsic aspects of the whole of 
reality and that the higher levels exercise a measure of 
guidance over the lower while they also require the lower 
for their realization. 

The fact is that if the levels of matter, life and mind, 
coexist and interact in the cosmos, the long controversy 
between materialism and idealism loses its point. Mund 
has its permanent claim, and matter has its permanent 
claim to reality within the whole, and neither exists in 
isolation. While mind is higher in the scale and there- 
fore more valuable, it is not more real than matter, nor is 
it more necessary than matter to the economy of the whole. 
Mind requires the organization of matter for its realiza- 
tion as much as matter of a lower order requires mind for 
its guidance, and both are aspects of the hierarchical 
organization of the cosmos. Mind, so far as we know, 
can only exist as an organization of matter, though it is 
more than inorganic matter and more than protoplasmic 
matter; and mind can only become effective by acting 
upon matter by means of matter. Hence it ill befits mind 
to despise matter. And it ill befits it to despise itself by 
making itself a function of something lower than itself. 

The claims of the emergence theory, so far as it is truly 
descriptive, are recognized, viz., there is creative synthesis 
and emergence of properties, forms, levels, but a rationale 
is furnished for this emergence in the conception of inter- 
action of the particular history with the structure of the 
cosmos. The claims of final causes, on the other hand, are 
set clear, since in the cosmos as a whole all the levels of 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 129 


organization ever coexist, and the higher levels furnish 
the impulse to creative adaptation in the lower. But the 
higher stages of evolution do not exist in isolation from 
the lower stages as Plato’s world of abstract forms. They 
are not immaterial merely, but evidence themselves as 
higher types of organization of matter; they can there- 
fore exercise control over the lower stages, not only when 
the lower stages are integrated into the higher, but when 
existing as less developed histories. Reality everywhere 
has form or structure by virtue of the control of the whole. 
There is the logic of the whole, though this is not neces- 
sarily the logic of the psychological structure of our mind. 
And this logic of the whole reveals itself not only in the 
striving of thought for logical form, but in the striving for 
wholes of beauty and in the creating of social unities. 
God is the highest level of the cosmos. There can be 
no question of ne existence of God, for whatever the 
quality of the highest level to which we strive to adapt 
ourselves in our best, this is God. God is for us the unique 
and perfect realization of matter. For we cannot conceive 
the highest level as isolated. It must radiate its charac- 
teristic pattern. God must be creative. But God does 
not radiate into the void as Plotinus’ One. God is incar- 
nate in matter and acts upon matter that matter may, by 
a trial and error process, orient itself to God. God must 
become known through matter divinely organized. God 
is the supreme cosmic genius operating from the highest 
to the lowest, radiating out energy patterns to be 
responded to by the parts of the cosmos as each can 
respond. For each part responds in beauty by creative 
adaptation according to its character and complexity— 
the sunset, the flower, the animal, the creative soul. God’s 
creativeness is a protean creativeness, not limited like ours 
by a specific aim. Rather does God radiate from the ful- 
ness of His life as light radiates, as music radiates, as love 
radiates. It is the kindly radiation of constructive genius, 
potent to heal and to build. The schoolmen used to say 
that God is present everywhere by His activity, but not 


130 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


by His essence. If we mean by this that the divine syn- 
thesis at its highest requires a perfection of organization 
and levels of organization far surpassing ours, and that 
this organization involves a unique structure and can only 
be responded to in kind where this perfection of organi- 
zation has been attained, then we can see why God cannot 
be responded to in essence by us any more than light can 
be responded to in essence by the amceba. But we cannot 
separate essence and activity. God radiates Himself, his 
unique, supermind pattern, to act, to guide, and to steer 
towards recognition of Himself even as light acts to pro- 
duce rapport with light long before there can be response 
to light in kind. As we open our souls to the divine genius 
in the universe we get inspiration and become creative 
according to our stage of development, as the sunset, the 
flower, and the child manifest this creativeness according 
to their stage, though it is given to us in some moments 
to become consciously creative and thus to enter in a 
measure into the law of creativeness. 

If there is a nisus towards God in our imperfect evolu- 
tion, due to our trial and error adaptation to the divine 
impetus, yet we cannot presume now to share the quality 
of God in kind any more than the dog who shares the 
friendship of a Newton can hope to share the mind of 
Newton. There must be an element of mysticism in all 
religion. Clearly God dwells in a light to which no man 
can come. In the homely language of Heraclitus: Man 
is a monkey compared to God. There is a difference in 
quality which separates us from being God in essence. 
Yet we may be sure that all holy desires, all lofty thoughts, 
all aspirations after better things are responses to His fruc- 
tifying influence upon us. The overarching supercon- 
sciousness, supermind, supergenius comprehends the cos- 
mos in its wholeness as the creative artist alone can com- 
prehend. We can only understand dimly and partly, 
because we can only create dimly and partly. Only the 
creator can truly understand. 

How petty from this vantage point seems the narrow 


EVOLUTION AS COSMIC INTERACTION 131 


pragmatic view which makes man with his biological sat- 
isfactions the centre of the universe. From the humanist 
point of view, thought, beauty, God exist for the satisfac- 
tion of man. Man creates them for himself. Rather 
should we say from our cosmic point of view that thought 
stimulates the life process in us to creative intelligence, 
beauty stimulates to create and appreciate beauty, and 
God stimulates to creative communion with God. Thus 
it is true in the words of Augustine that God makes us for 
Himself and therefore we cannot be satisfied until we 
establish creative rapport with Him. 

















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FEA ayy 





PART IT 


HUMAN NATURE AND COSMIC 
EVOLUTION 


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Tey +h 





CHAPTER IV 
SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 


The Organism and the Cosmos 


WE shall now shift our perspective from nature to human 
nature, from the cosmos to man, from the macrocosm to 
the microcosm. All the while, however, we must bear in 
mind that the bifurcation of nature and human nature is 
an artificial one. Human nature can only be understood 
as part of nature, the evolution of man can only be under- 
stood as part of cosmic evolution. In this profounder 
sense, human nature is as old as the cosmos. This must be 
obvious enough when we deal with human nature from 
the spectator’s point of view, and consider it as a physio- 
logical organism, as we do in this chapter. We find that 
we cannot understand the human organism, and in par- 
ticular its nervous system, without understanding the his- 
tory of that organism as part of the larger story of 
evolution. 


If we picture to ourselves the evolution of the nerv- 
ous system of man, we must imagine the formation of 
the chemical elements from the electrons of the stellar 
laboratories, the combination of certain of these ele- 
ments into organic aggregates and the formation of 
unicellular organisms, the development of multicellu- 
lar types in whose organization muscles appear, then 
receptors, and finally adjustors or central nervous 
organs culminating in the brain of man. Such a 
series forms superficially a seemingly natural and 
smooth sequence and yet when it is examined 
closely, it proves to be a succession of breaks and 
contradictions.’ 

2G. H. Parker, “The Evolution of the Nervous System,” in the 
Evolution of Man, edited by G. A. Baitsell, Yale Press, 1922, p. 99. 


135 


136 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


It is a series of discontinuous steps where the elements 
enter into new creative syntheses and take on new patterns 
of organization. This series can only be understood, we 
have seen, as creative adaptation of the part to the whole, 
where the structure of the whole furnishes the impetus 
to organization and the part responds by a trial and error 
process according to its own milieu of energies. The prob- 
lem of evolution is a problem of organization. 


No one now entertains seriously the view once put 
forward by Haeckel in the heyday of the evolutionary 
movement that since human beings have souls every 
atom of their bodies must have part of such a soul. 

If the peculiarities of volitional action are not 
to be discovered in the chemical elements that make 
up the substance in which it occurs, they must be 
ascribed to the organization of this substance, that is, 
to the way in which the elements of this substance are 
put together and interact amongst themselves. From 
this standpoint certain chemical elements organized 
as nervous protoplasm have a greater degree of free- 
dom in their action than when the same elements are 
organized in the form of lifeless molecules. * 


To understand this new organization with its greater 
degree of freedom it is not only necessary to understand 
the elements of the compound and their quantitative rela- 
tions, but we should have to know also the total situation 
of nature in which the synthesis takes place. It is because 
the situation of nature is largely constant that we come to 
fix our attention on the elements and their immediate 
conditions. 

If we limit our attention more specifically to the nerv- 
ous system, we find that this has a long history. The nerv- 
ous system, as we know it in man and the higher animals, 
consists in organs for receiving stimuli, or receptors; organs 
for redirecting stimuli, or adjustors; and organs for react- 
ing appropriately to stimuli, or effectors. But this is not 

* Ibid., p. 100. 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 137 


typical of animal structure throughout the scale. In the 
simplest organisms there is merely protoplasmic reception, 
conduction, and response. There is no differentiated nerv- 
ous system. In the sponges we seem to have merely effec- 
tors or triggers which are set off directly by the external 
stimulus. In the sea-anemone we have receptors and 
effectors, but no adjustors. The sea-anemone is a sac-like 
animal with a single aperture which leads into a large cen- 
tral cavity. A nerve net extends from the surface of the 
musculature of the organism. 


This nerve-net nowhere shows a special contraction 
but extends rather uniformly throughout the body 
and thus affords an easy path over which impulses 
may spread from the surface of the animal to its 
musculature.” 


We have in the sea-anemone and organisms of its type 
a pure instance of what Dr. Head calls protopathic action. 
The stimulation is diffuse and the organism responds by 
mass-reflex, z.e., by the contraction or expansion of the 
whole organism. Such diffuse response seems to persist 
in the higher organisms, though ordinarily masked by the 
epicritic control of the adjustor centres. It is only under 
pathological conditions when the connections with the 
central nervous system have been functionally severed 
that we find something like the mass-reflex of such organ- 
isms as the sea-anemone. Of course the relation is only 
approximate, since the lower centres may still remain 
intact. It seems, however, that in the highest organisms 
the epicritic functions of discriminate reaction are cen- 
tralized more particularly in the cortex of the cerebrum. 
But of that we shall speak later. 

An interesting problem arises as regards the relation 
of the sense qualities, as we perceive them, to the charac- 
teristics of the external stimulus. That there is such a 
relation we cannot doubt. The sense organs and the nerv- 
ous system have developed in the long process of evolution 

eiind.,) p. 87. | 


138 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


as creative adaptations to the environment and therefore 
cannot be indifferent to the environment. They are adap- 
tations both to the quantity and quality of stimuli. No 
one to-day takes the monadism of Leibnitz seriously as a 
scientific theory, though even in Leibnitz’ world we have 
the appearance of adaptation, and appearances are the 
data of science. But granting, as we must, that there is 
areal relation between sense qualities, as we perceive them, 
and the character of the stimulus, how must we conceive 
this relation? Is it a relation of simple induction where 
the characteristics of the external stimulus, colour for 
example, are carried to the central organs just as they are 
in the external environment? Aside from the physical 
difficulties involved in the conception of the direct induc- 
tion through the sense organs and the nerves of vibration 
rates of billions per second, there are physiological diffi- 
culties. There is no evidence of any sensory response 
below a certain intensity of the stimulus, though of course 
there may be other response. Again the quality of colour 
varies with the intensity of the light and not merely with 
the wave length. Then there are phenomena of colour 
contrast and negative after-sensations which cannot be 
accounted for as simple physical relations. 

A more plausible theory is the contraction theory of M. 
Bergson. According to this theory 


we seize, in the act of perception, something which 
outruns perception itself, although the material uni- 
verse is not essentially different or distinct from the 
representation which we have of it. In one sense, my 
perception is indeed truly within me, since it con- 
tracts into a single moment of my duration that which 
taken in itself, spreads over an incalculable number 
of moments. But if you abolish my consciousness, 
the material universe exists exactly as it was; only 
since you have removed that particular rhythm of 
duration which was the condition of my action upon 
things, these things draw back into themselves, mark 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 139 


as many moments in their own existence as science 
distinguishes in it; and sensible qualities, without 
vanishing, are spread and diluted in an incomparably 
more divided duration. . . . Now bring back con- 
sciousness, and with it the exigencies of life: at long, 
very long intervals, and by as many leaps over enor- 
mous periods of the inner history of things, quasi- 
instantaneous views will be taken, views which this 
time are bound to be pictorial, and of which the more 
vivid colours will condense an infinity of elementary 
repetitions and changes.’ 


The difference between the light vibrations as they exist 
in nature outside our organisms, and colour qualities as 
we perceive them, is for M. Bergson a difference in rhythm. 


In reality there is no one rhythm of duration; it is 
possible to imagine many different rhythms which, 
slower or faster, measure the degree of tension or 
relaxation of different kinds of consciousness, and 
thereby fix their respective places in the scale of 
being.° 


Nature, as we perceive it, is not essentially different from 
nature outside us, but owing to the rhythm of our per- 
ception it is more condensed. 


To perceive consists in condensing enormous periods 
of an infinitely diluted existence into a few more differ- 
entiated moments of an intenser life, and in thus 
summing up a very long history. To perceive means 
to immobilize. 


M. Bergson would account for the discontinuity of the 
colour qualities as we perceive them by the condensation 
of vibrations. 


May we not conceive, for instance, that the irre- 
ducibility of two perceived colours is due mainly to 


* Matter and Memory, pp. 275-277. 
© lbid:, p. 275. 


140 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the narrow duration into which are contracted the 
billions of vibrations which they execute in one of 
our moments? If we could stretch out this duration, 
that is to say, live it at a slower rhythm, should we 
not, as the rhythm slowed down, see these colours 
pale and lengthen into successive impressions, still 
coloured, no doubt, but nearer and nearer to coinci- 
dence with pure vibrations? In cases where the 
rhythm of the movement is slow enough to tally with 
the habits of our consciousness,—as in the case of 
the deep notes of the musical scale, for instance,— 
we do not feel that the quality perceived analyzes 
itself into repeated and successive vibrations, bound 
together by an inner continuity.° 


We can conceive a consciousness of a higher degree of ten- 
sion than our own consciousness. Such a consciousness 
might contract the whole history of humanity into a very 
brief span without altering its significance. 

The plausibility of M. Bergson’s theory les, of course, 
in his animistic conception of nature. He passes from 
human consciousness to nature by a relaxation of the ten- 
sion to which he conceives human consciousness is due. 
Nature becomes then a diluted form of what we find in 
human consciousness. But the analogy of the varying 
rates of dream consciousness is irrelevant to the relation 
of consciousness and matter. Again, the relation between 
stimulus and sense quality is conceived too simply. To be 
sure, M. Bergson recognizes that the rhythm in human 
nature is not a simple induction from external nature. 
Human nature has a rhythm of its own which involves a 
condensation of the rhythm of nature. But why should 
the condensation of vibrations give rise to colour quali- 
ties? And why should increasing condensation give rise 
to a discontinuous series of colour qualities? We have 
seen, moreover, that perceived colour quality varies not 
only with vibration rate, but the mtensity of light. And 


* Ibid., pp. 268, 269. 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 141 


how are we to account for colour contrast and negative 
after-sensations on the basis of condensation? The rela- 
tion between the quality as perceived and the characteris- 
tic stimulus is indeed a quantum relation both as regards 
vibration rate and intensity, but the relation must be 
conceived as of the nature of creative synthesis rather 
than as a mere quantitative variation of tension in the 
perceiving organism. 

The difficulty with naive realism is that it starts with 
a false bifurcation of nature and human nature. It then 
reads the sense qualities into nature and makes them inde- 
pendent of human nature. It ascribes colour to the vibra- 
tions of light. According to the same reasoning, the quali- 
ties of taste must belong to the taste stimuli, the olfactory 
qualities to the olfactory stimuli, ete. According to epis- 
temological idealism, on the other hand, the sense 
qualities are the contribution of the perceiving mind. 
Epistemological realism and epistemological idealism thus 
emphasize different sides of the bifurcation of nature and 
human nature, the former placing the sense qualities on 
the side of nature, the latter on the side of human nature. 
We shall arrive at the truth of the matter only when we 
view sense qualities as functions of the creative inter- 
action of the energies of physical nature with the organi- 
zation of human nature, its sense-organs, and nervous sys- 
tem. We have no reason to believe that ether waves 
possess the quality of colour or that taste stimuli are sweet, 
bitter, sour, and salt. Nor have we any reason to believe 
that these qualities exist in physical nature in a more 
diluted form, as M. Bergson holds. Still less can we 
believe that they are created by human nature without 
reference to physical nature. There is every reason, on 
the contrary, to believe that they are the creative result 
of adaptive interaction between physical nature and the 
organism. To understand, moreover, the definite discrim- 
inatory pattern-responses to stimuli which we find in the 
normal human being, we must take account not merely of 
the specific organization of the sense organs, but we must 


142 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


also take account of the structural hierarchy of the nerv- 
ous system and the control exercised by the higher centres 
over the lower. This will be brought out more clearly 
in the sequel. 


The Protopathic and Epicritic Levels 

In the annals of psychology nothing more heroic has 
been recorded than Dr. Head’s subjecting himself to vivi- 
section in cutting certain nerves that supply the superfi- 
cial organs of cutaneous sensation.’ The evidence thus 
arrived at has been corroborated by a mass of pathological 
cases, especially from the late war. The evidence is so 
familiar that it will only be necessary to state it in outline. 
The elimination of the functioning of the superficial organs 
strips bare the deeper sensibility and reveals its quality. 
These deeper organs of muscles, joints, and tendons 
respond to pressure and to pain. They furnish a fairly 
accurate localization in space. And it is they which furnish 
the impressions which, when conducted to the cortical 
field, give us the sense of passive posture or three-dimen- 
sional space. 

When recovery begins to take place, the primitive punc- 
tate or protopathic system becomes active and confuses 
the process of localization. The protopathic system 
responds, through its punctate organs, to pressure, hot and 
cold, and pain. But its responses are diffuse, massive and 
primarily affective. It informs us, not of the qualities of 
things, but of how stimuli affect the organism. It centres’ 
in the optic thalamus rather than the cortex. It is adapted 
for defensive withdrawal of the body, not for differential 
reaction having reference to the part affected. Its 
responses are crude and non-discriminative. It is charac- 
terized by the “all or none” reaction. It responds to exten- 
sity of stimulation, not to graduated intensity. Nor does 
it respond to localized stimulation. The stimulations 


* For a summary of the epoch-making work of Dr. Henry Head, with 
Dr. W. H. R. Rivers and other collaborators, see Dr. Head’s article, 
“Sensation. and the Cerebral Cortex,” Brain, 41, Part II. Of this I have 
made use in this section. 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 143 


radiate to distant parts. They lack control. It cannot 
discriminate the two points of the compass. It is different 
when the healing process is complete and the epicritic 
system appears. This superimposes control upon the 
crude mass response of the protopathic system. ‘The sense 
stimulation no longer spreads to distant parts. We can 
now project points, 7.e., respond to the locality stimulated. 
The “all or none’ type of reaction disappears and the 
response is approximately graded according to variations 
in intensity. We can now take account of the physical 
qualities of things as well as the affective qualities. We 
can discriminate simultaneous and successive points in 
two-dimensional space. Adaptation, which is absent on 
the protopathic level, returns. All this, of course, pre- 
supposes the intactness of the central nervous system. 
The epicritic system is ultimately centred in the cortex, 
as the protopathic in the optic thalamus. 

The sense-organs are characterized by structural differ- 
entiation, and upon their reaction to external stimuli 
depend in the last analysis the different sense qualities. 
If we compare the sense organs to resonators, they are 
at any rate not neutral resonators, but contribute a differ- 
ential quality of their own. ‘They are specific energies. 
The cold spots will respond to temperatures below 22° C. 
with a characteristic cold quality. But they will also 
respond, in the absence of inhibition from the hot-spots, 
with an ice-cold sensation to temperatures of 45° C., which 
when applied to the hot-spots or the general surface give 
us a sensation of pleasant warmth. In the absence of the 
functioning of the cold-spots, the hot-spots respond to 
stimuli of 22° C. with a characteristic warm sensation. 
Sensations, in other words, are compound energies. They 
depend, to be sure, on the character of the stimulus, but 
they depend also on the energy complex of the sense- 
organs. This is especially evident in the case of the chem- 
ical senses which at any rate include all but hearing, if 
not the latter. It is as absurd to suppose that the physical 
vibrations, which our physical instruments reveal, are red 


144 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


or green, as to suppose that they are cold or painful. It 
happens that we carry a polychromatic camera in our 
heads. But we can also construct polychromatic cameras 
that can see colours. Neither the cameras in our heads 
nor the artificial cameras can see colour unless they possess 
the specific energies to respond in a characteristic way. 
Sensations are ordinarily physico-physiological processes, 
though they can, under certain conditions, be produced 
by the organism independently of the physical stimulus. 
We have no evidence that they can be produced in the 
absence of the specific conditions furnished by the sense- 
organs or similar organs. Even in the case of sound, 
though we carry a harp in our ears, be it the basilar mem- 
brane or some other organ, we know that harps respond 
with a quality of their own. Sounds, too, are compound 
energies. 

While we hold to the specific energies of the senses, this 
does not mean that sensations are transmitted to the cor- 
tex just as they result from the reaction of the senses. The 
evidence of Dr. Head and others shows that the crude 
sensations undergo selective analysis and new integrations 
on the way to the cortex. This, however, does not neces- 
sarily mean a change of specific quality. We are not in a 
position to dogmatize about the difference which the vari- 
ous neural patterns make to the sensory impulses as they 
are permitted to pass the hierarchy of “vigilances.”’ * But, 
at any rate as regards the cortical field, pathological evi- 
dence goes to show that there is no raising of the threshold 
unless the cortical injury be very extensive. The difference 
between the normal reactions and the pathological may be 
reduced to one of “clearness.” There is a lack of “clear- 
ness,’ “pointedness,” “sharpness” in the case of a cortical 
lesion affecting certain parts. This leads to uncertainty, 
hesitation, guessing, and hallucination. It is a failure in 
discrimination or a difference in attention. What holds 
on the cortical level probably holds in the case of the. 


* The term “vigilance” as used in this connection by Dr. Head has no 
anthropomorphic significance. 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 145 


neural levels below it and their pattern reactions. In any 
case there is no reason to suppose that the characteristic 
qualities of sense-impulses are altered. And what is true 
of sense-impulses, holds equally of affective qualities. 
While the optic thalamus seems to be peculiarly the centre 
of these qualities, the discrimination of intensive gradua- 
tion within these qualities and their weaving into the com- 
plex patterns of emotions and sentiments, with their objec- 
tive reference, must be peculiarly the work of the cortex. 
In any case the affective qualities do not owe their nature 
to consciousness. 


Selection and Integration in Terms of Neural Levels 

If the evidence disproves the subjectivistic interpreta- 
tion of sensations, it no less breaks down the subjective 
view of the selection and integration of sensations. We 
can state the selective and integrative functions in purely 
physiological terms. They are present at all the levels of 
neural reaction. We can thus give a physiological state- 
ment of the “subject-object” relation. For the subject 
relation means the selection of data with reference to cer- 
tain ends, whether these ends are ingrained in our nervous 
structure as a result of biological heredity or are further 
elaborated in terms of the life history of the individual. 
Obviously the first subject reactions must be biological, 
as individual history must start somewhere; but through- 
out individual history our selective activity 1s fundamen- 
tally determined by biological patterns, however much 
overlaid by individual experience. At each level of the 
nervous system, selection is conditioned by the unique 
neural pattern of that level as it 1s organized in terms of 
race and individual history. The object consists of the 
afferent impulses which are selected and integrated by the 
pattern, or rather hierarchy of patterns, and which thus 
become effective in guiding conduct. The afferent 
impulses may figure as part of either the subject relation 
or object relation. They are part of the object relation 
when they are selected as data to be integrated and acted 


146 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


upon. They are part of the subject relation in so far as 
they are the rebound of the selective activity and figure 
as part of its tension, as, for example, the motor sensa- 
tions in active attention. They become, then, means of 
selection, not data which are selected. 

Let us now try to make our meaning clearer by exam- 
ining the functions of the central nervous system at vari- 
ous levels. The nervous system consists of a hierarchy 
of fields of energy or controls. These fields must be 
thought of in physiological rather than in structural terms, 
though of course they have structure. The structure, how- 
ever, is too complicated for us to follow its internal 
dynamics. It is fraught with a past of indefinite duration 
of which we know little. We must therefore be pragmatic 
and judge neural structures by their functions. While 
these energy fields differ vastly in complexity and in their 
characteristic patterns, they have certain essential char- 
acteristics in common. Their part is to select, sort into 
kinds, suppress incompatible impulses and facilitate com- 
patible, and finally redirect or integrate these impulses 
so that they may be carried out in accordance with the 
needs of the organism. Their adaptation throughout is 
of the trial and error kind; and it is clear that natural selec- 
tion has acted effectively to eliminate the conspicuous 
failures of nature’s experimentation, even though natural 
selection as a purely negative agency is barren so far as 
producing adaptation is concerned. 

The sorting process begins at the first synaptic junction 
in the spinal chord. The sensory impulses of hot, cold and 
pain cross to the other side and travel along separate 
secondary paths. The tactile impulses travel both along 
the posterior columns and along secondary paths as far as 
the top of the spinal chord before they all cross into second- 
ary tracts. Like impulses are grouped together from all 
three systems—epicritic, protopathic, and deeper sensi- 
bility. Thus the tactual sensations from the three systems 
are combined. Impulses of hot, cold, pressure, and pain 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 147 


proceed along separate paths to the optic thalamus which 
is the centre for the crude discrimination of these sensa- 
tions, but especially the centre for the affective qualities 
of comfort and discomfort. The three sensory qualities 
of space are bound up with the tactile impulses along the 
posterior columns of the spinal chord; but above it they 
follow each a separate path through the fillet of the optic 
thalamus to the cerebellum and cerebrum. 

The cerebellum has to do with the control and regulation 
of the postural and tonic aspects of muscular activity 
which involves complex discriminations and adjustments, 
though we do not ordinarily associate consciousness with 
such activity. The cortex is the organ of objective cogni- 
tion. On it depend, in the first place, the more delicate 
discriminations of data. It is only at the cortical level 
that we discriminate graduated intensities of stimuli. It 
is also the supreme organ for spatial discrimination in the 
three dimensions—point localization, discrimination in 
two-dimensional space, such as the two compass points, 
and the sense of posture. The last implies a cumulative 
sense of positional values, or what Dr. Head calls a schema, 
which, however, must be understood as a cortical pattern 
reaction and not a contribution by consciousness. The 
cortex discriminates the physical qualities of size, shape, 
weight, and texture and makes graduated comparisons 
possible within those qualities. It also has the capacity 
of recognizing a series of minute and vibratory differences, 
thus giving us our Immediate sense of duration. With the 
recognition of sense differences goes the projection of lines 
of reference to the parts affected, without which the in- 
formation conveyed would be of no practical value, and 
this capacity depends primarily upon the cortex. 


Imagination Patterns and Sensations 
The cortex is not only the great organ for objective dis- 
crimination but also the great organ for establishing rela- 
tions between data. For this complex pattern reaction of 


148 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the cortex, we may use the term “meaning.” Pathology °” 
indicates a considerable specialization within the cortex 
for meaning reactions. The meaning of single words or 
names may exist when the propositional meaning of words 
is lost and vice versa. Both kinds of meaning are lost in 
deep semantic disorders. Meaning to a certain extent may 
exist in spite of failure of verbal expression. The patient 
may still be able to point to things signified. However 
crude such recognition in the absence of language expres- 
sion may be, it should give us pause from identifying 
meaning entirely with language mechanisms,’ valuable 
though the latter are as instruments of meaning, and 
indeed indispensable for its abstract elaboration. There is, 
of course, ample evidence for language mechanisms taking 
the place of thought, but then we no longer have the 
process of thinking. 

It is evident that the great superiority of the cortex hes 
in the perspectives which the meaning patterns make pos- 
sible. As it is equipped with the “long distance receptors 
in space,” especially sight (as pointed out by Sherring- 
ton), so it is equipped with long distance receptors in time. 
While in the lower centres, such as those of the spinal 
chord, the past endures as condensed in their present struc- 
ture, this responds only to present stimuli. The cortex, 
on the other hand, through its memory patterns can 
respond differentially to distant events in time. Again, 
through its anticipation patterns, it can project events into 
the future and build the bridge before coming to it. This 
hierarchy of relation patterns in the cortex, from the com- 
paratively passive revival of past experience to the active 
reconstruction of experience to meet new events we shall 
call imagination. It is not necessary for our purpose to 
distinguish between imagination and thought. Or rather 
thought is one type of imagination. It is constructive 

°See Dr. Henry Head’s article, “Disorders of Symbolic Thinking and 
Expression,” Brit. J. of Psychol., II, Part 2. 

*° Professor John Watson in his brilliant paper, “Thinking and Lan- 


guage Mechanisms,” before the Oxford Congress of Philosophy, 1920, 
seems to identify thought entirely with language mechanisms. 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 149 


imagination as contrasted with reproductive, though some- 
times we limit thought to constructive imagination 
which works with abstract symbols. This distinction has 
tended perhaps to draw the line too sharply between 
thought and artistic invention. Thought may work with 
concrete imagery, while artistic imagination may be singu- 
larly lacking in such material. 

What I want to emphasize is that constructive imagina- 
tion or thought is as genuine a type of neural pattern as 
is the reflex arc or the primitive instinct. In the absence 
of its specific cortical pattern, thought cannot be aroused 
any more than a reflex can be aroused in the absence of 
the specific neural pattern. You cannot make an idiot 
think, try as you may. Thought is not an instinct, as 
Graham Wallas ** intimates. It is a far more complicated 
pattern. It may be aroused by curiosity or any other in- 
stinctive activity; it may also be aroused by sensations. 
But it may act from its own peculiar restlessness, one 
thought process stimulating another. Thought is not to 
be regarded as a beast of burden of our lower propensities, 
as the anti-intellectualists maintain, though it may be 
evoked, and should be evoked, to guide and control the 
instincts. It may, however, work for its own creative 
satisfaction. Its bodily expression varies with tempera- 
ment. It may be organic, as in what Fouillé calls the “sen- 
sitive temperament’, and then one can think best by 
lying flat on one’s back; or it may be motor, and then one 
can think best by giving the large muscles play. It is 
essentially social, and so implies the need for expression 
of which language is both a social and neural pattern. 

And now we must say a word about images. The patho- 
logical evidence indicates that images play at most an 
unimportant part in behaviour. Postural images may be 
present as vivid as ever in a cortical lesion on one side of 
the cerebrum, but such images are impotent to guide pos- 
tural adjustment. They lead neither to effective recogni- 
tion nor appropriate expression. Evidently images have 

11 The Great Society, 1914, pp. 48, 49. 


150 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


been much overrated by traditional psychology. But 
what are they? Since Galton there can be no doubt that 
there are marked differences in concrete types of imagina- 
tion, 2.e., in the relation of imagination patterns to the 
different organs. Some peoples’ imagination relates more 
to the eyes, others’ to the ears, etc. But this does not 
mean that the cortex fabricates a peculiar content, whether 
sensations or images, nor that it stores content. There is 
no more reason to suppose that the cortex stores or fabri- 
cates content than to suppose that the spinal chord does 
so. The neural centres of the various levels are systems of 
energy patterns of increasing complexity and uniqueness. 
They are not store-houses of content. What they store 
are lines of motion as potential energy. All content is sen- 
sational and exists only in the degree that the senses are 
active. All the real evidence points that way. 

In the first place, it 1s impossible to distinguish between 
imaginative content and sensational content at the mini- 
mal level of intensities. This is what gives rise to the 
troublesome complication of “expectant attention” in our 
experiments. If imaginative content had a unique qual- 
ity, as some maintain, this confusion should not exist. We 
should no more confuse an image with its corresponding 
sensation than we confuse colour with pressure, even at 
minimal intensities. In the second place, much at least of 
what has been supposed to be imaginative content is 
proved upon inspection to be sensational. This is par- 
ticularly obvious in regard to motor imagination. But 
there is good reason to believe that it holds of all the types 
of content in imaginative activity. In the third place, we 
can arouse bona fide sensations through imagination. 
Imagine yourself riding on the back of a tiger, and you 
will find that you have veridic sensations of shiver all 
over. To a certain extent you can control the succession 
of colour fields in the case of visual imagination when it is 
directed to producing colour fields on the retina, and some 
experimenters claim to have complete control. Moreover, 
if you extrovert your attention in the case of a vivid visual 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND | 151 


image, you will find it on the retinal field. At least that 
has been my experience. Of course the pattern is cortical. 
A Scotch plaid would not happen by chance on the retinal 
field. 

The anatomical mechanism, by which such sensational 
content is furnished, in the case of imaginative activities, is 
obscure for the most part. In the case of motor imagina- 
tion the sensational content is sufficiently explained by the 
close connection between meaning patterns and expression 
patterns in the cortex. The sensational content is the 
afferent result of this are. But we cannot see how the 
motor adjustment of the eye could give us anything but 
motor sensations. It could not account for the variety of 
visual patterns that imagination furnishes. And the same 
problem meets us in the other sense departments. There 
is, to be sure, a close connection between incipient articu- 
lation and internal hearing, but it hardly seems sufficient 
to account for the range of auditory values of a symphony, 
considering the limited range of our vocal organs. They 
couldn’t very well supply what they cannot produce, 
though they no doubt are contributory. It has, however, 
been definitely proved that there are centrifugal sensory 
fibers running from the sensory centres of the cortex to 
the sense organs as well as centripetal sensory fibres from 
the sense-organs to the cortex.’* Such centrifugal fibres 
have been found where they seemed least likely, viz., in 
the ear. We have here, it would seem, the required physi- 
ological mechanism to account for imaginative content. 

We may hold, I think, that the imaginative patterns in 


12 Outlines of Psychology, O. Kiilpe, trans. by Titchener, 3d Ed., 1909, 
pp. 84, 85. The evidence in regard to the eye to which Kiilpe refers has 
since been corroborated and extended to the other senses. Kiilpe uses 
the hypothesis of centrifugal sensory conduction to account for (1) the 
effect. of inadequate stimulation upon the brain-stem; (2) the phenomena 
of after-sensation, e.g., that an exclusively monocular stimulation gives 
rise to a sensation in the unstimulated eye; (3) the so-called positive 
after-image, a secondary sensation of the same quality as the primary 
sensation but occurring after a short pause; (4) certain facts in connec- 
tion with “centrally excited” sensations, such as illusions and hallucina- 
tions. He still holds to the hypothesis of cortically excited sensations, 
independent of the periphery, for the ordinary imaginal processes. 


152 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the cortex are connected by lines of motion, centrifugal as 
well as centripetal, with the sense-organs of the body; that 
what is stored is not content but lines of motion, thus con- 
necting the meaning patterns with the parts of the body; 
that imaginative revival means that these energy patterns 
are brought into play and communicate their motion out- 
ward to the sense-organs, which, if the excitement is suffi- 
cient to overcome their inertia, respond by sending sense 
impulses to the cortex. Unusually high excitement in the 
cortex would tend to produce illusion and hallucination. 
We can thus account for the proof-reader’s errors and for 
our supplying the pianissimo treble notes which the player 
only feigns supplying; and we can understand why people 
see life-size ghosts with clothes on, just as they expect or 
fear they will. Individual variations of permeability in 
the direction of certain sense-organs would account for the 
relative dominance or absence of certain types of imagery. 
The fact that images do not ordinarily come ready-made 
but are the result of fixation by attention, voluntary or 
involuntary; that, moreover, they increase with attention 
in vividness and definiteness until they result, as they 
often do, in veridic, and not merely nascent sensations; 
that under such circumstances, if we are careful observers, 
we can notice a corresponding excitement in the sense- 
organs—all this fits in with the above theory. Cases of 
insistent images can be shown to be due to an insistent 
cortical pattern which has established unusual permeabil- 
ity for itself in a certain sensory direction. We can 
account for negative after-images, resulting from imagina- 
tion, which, however rare, are now acknowledged to be 
veridiec, 7.e., some observers in imagining red have succeeded 
in getting a negative after-image or green. The theory 
would also help to explain various phenomena of centrally 
initiated pain sensations, so familiar to the pathologist. 
But the psychological reader can easily multiply instances 
where the theory would be useful. 

It is not difficult to account for what has been termed 
imageless thought on the above theory. In the first place, 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 153 


there is wide variation as regards the presence of concrete 
imagery and in some individuals it is largely absent. But 
further than that, when the attention is absorbed in the 
search for abstract relations, there is a tendency to sup- 
press the revival of sensational impulses, for these might 
confuse rather than increase the effective working of 
attention. The law of economy operates to suppress the 
useless and to emphasize that which tends to further the 
end involved. It seems, moreover, that a continuous ten- 
dency to suppress concrete imagery leads to atrophy of 
the functions of revival in that direction or, in other terms, 
tends permanently to block expression of that type. We 
recall as a familiar instance of this the regret expressed 
by Darwin in his later life that he was no longer able 
to enjoy music or poetry which had been an important 
part of his life in his earlier years. Coupled with this 
regret was a feeling that such loss of concrete appreciation 
had probably caused a deterioration of a moral kind. 

It has been suggested as an objection to the above theory 
of imagination that people who have lost an arm or a leg 
still have the feeling of a “phantom” arm or leg, which, 
according to some, seems shrunk and smaller than the 
other. The evidence is by no means unambiguous, but it 
would seem that in such cases it is visual imagination and 
not tactual which furnishes the pattern. Dr. Head has 
shown that the image of the phantom limb, which may 
exist In cases of lesions on one side of the cortex, has no 
value in recognition or postural adjustment. If the 
patient’s affected hand is moved after his eyes are closed, 
and he is asked to indicate its position, with the other 
hand, he will point to the place where it was when he 
saw it. As to the sense of shrinkage or shortening, that 
would seem to be a matter to be interpreted in terms of 
tactual sensibility. Since the sensational response to the 
projected sensory lines is actually cut short and shrunk 
in bulk, the fact would be just what we should expect on 
the theory we have advanced. On the other hand, if the 
sensory processes are cortically produced there seems to be 


154 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


no reason for any shrinkage. Another objection which has 
been raised is that persons whose eyes have been removed, 
including the retina, still have visual imagination. It is 
necessary to have more definite facts before attempting to 
answer such an objection. In the first place, the term 
image has been and is a very ambiguous word; and it is 
therefore difficult to know what people mean when they 
speak of an image. There would still be meaning patterns 
directed towards the eyes, though there were no concrete 
imagery. Again, the actual facts of the operations would 
have to be established. In the nature of the case there 
could be no objective test, and the introspective test must 
always be uncertain. Furthermore, we are under a pecu- 
liar difficulty in the case of the end organ of vision, owing 
to its being, as it were, a projected part of the cortex. We 
cannot be sure how much is included in the organ of 
vision.”° But in both of the above objections the facts 
are still too much in the nature of old wives’ tales to be 
taken seriously; the important thing is that the theory 
should meet the ordinary and established facts. 


Suppression and Neural Levels 


The sorting and integration of sensory impulses would 
be useless except for another function of the nervous sys- 
tem, viz., that of selective inhibition or, to use Dr. Rivers’s 
term, suppression. A certain “vigilance” is exercised by 
each neural level which permits only those impulses to 
pass which fit in with the general set. There is a constant 
struggle for dominance amongst incompatible impulses at 
the various levels. Were all allowed to reach the highest 
level of discrimination, there would be endless confusion. 
But only the victors reach the higher levels. Which among 
several competing impulses emerges as victor depends not 


**Tf in the case of vision the sensory neurones of some centre or 
perhans the receptor cells in the cortex itself have a differentiation corre- 
sponding to that usually attributed to the retina, then when the synaptic 
connections with the centrifugal sensory fibres are once established in the 
cortex, the centrally initiated motion would only need to travel to the 
synaptic junction of the centrifugal with the centripetal fibres. next 
below the centre in question to produce the required afferent current. 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 155 


merely upon the quality, intensity, and duration of the 
competing impulses but implies the entire history of the 
nerve-centre,—the duration of previous lines of motion, 
whether of race history or individual history, as structure 
or potential energy. And we must take account not only 
of the set of the individual centre, but of its relation to 
the levels above it which under normal conditions to a 
large extent control its behaviour. Prepotency is, there- 
fore, a very complex affair and can be studied by us only 
as revealed in function. 

It is easy to illustrate the fact of suppression in connec- 
tion with sensory impulses. Suppose you apply a metal 
disc of a temperature of 45° C. to the back of your hand. 
You stimulate not only the hot spots, but the cold spots, 
the pressure spots and the pain spots. Yet the sensation 
is one of pleasant warmth. ‘The other impulses, under 
normal conditions, do not reach the cortex. ‘This does 
not mean that they are absent. Pathological cases show 
us that they are always present, ready to come to lght 
when the epicritic control is removed. Visceral sensations 
are always present, but it is only under abnormal condi- 
tions that they reach the highest discriminative centres, 
and this because their information becomes important for 
self-preservation. ‘The suppressed sensations, moreover, 
may count, even when they do not reach the higher levels, 
in guiding reflexes of the lower centres. 

It is, however, not only in connection with sensory 
impulses that the nervous system selects the compatible 
and suppresses the incompatible. The principle holds 
throughout. Dr. Rivers * has shown how within the cor- 
tical level there are various strata, due in the first place to 
organic evolution, with recapitulation in part at least of 
its main periods, but overlaid in the course of individual 
development. Here we have again the struggle for dom- 
inance of the various tendencies of the more primitive 
levels, on the one hand, and the epicritic control by the 
later levels, on the other. The earlier strata, such as the 

1W.H. R. Rivers, Instinct and the Unconscious, 1920. 


156 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


infantile level, the childhood level, the adolescent level, 
etc., do not disappear in the later life of the individual, but 
the crust of custom of the upper level exercises strict “vigi- 
lance” over them, and we may not under ordinary circum- 
stances suspect their presence. ‘Their suppression may, 
however, very much complicate the life of the individual; 
and they are ready to assert themselves with excessive 
vigour when the ordinary “vigilance” is relaxed. How to 
reduce the suppressed tendencies to a minimum by inte- 
grating them into a comprehensive scheme and sublimating 
them into the activities of normal life is a problem not 
only for the physician but for society at large. 


Neural Functioning Illustrated in More Complete 
Reactions 

Our emphasis so far has been upon the sensory and cog- 
nitive functioning of the organism. But we might have 
selected the more complete reactions with equal effect. 
The cognitive aspect does not exist by itself, but is bound 
up with the executive and affective aspects, and their com- 
plicated systems of patterns. The more thoroughgoing is 
the cognitive or informative function, the more definite 
and adequate are the affective and motor aspects. In the 
case of the reflex arc, the simplest complete neural act, we 
have the selection of sense impulses, the suppression of 
incompatible impulses, the integration of impulses into the 
prevailing pattern, and finally the projection of lines of 
action to the part affected. This of course assumes the 
intactness of the central nervous system. In the conflict 
for dominance in the neural centres, the physical law of 
summation of forces, as Sherrington ** points out, does 
not hold. When the flexor reflex and the extensor reflex 
conflict, the result is not an algebraical summation, but one 
or the other becomes prepotent; the other is suppressed. 
Orderly succession of adjustments means the supersession 
of one reflex or group of reflexes by another. It means the 


** Chas. 8. Sherrington, The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, 
1906, pp. 112, 118. 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 157 


passing from one reflex pattern to another, determined in 
part by the quality and intensity of the stimulus, in part 
by the set at the time of the neural centre,—this set being 
due to its previous stimulation and constitution on the 
one hand, and its relation to the higher centres on the 
other. Thus co-ordination is established as between 
reflexes, and the ends of the organism are furthered. 

The simplest neural centres thus reveal the essential 
traits of group conduct. “The nervous system,” says Sher- 
rington, “is in a certain sense the highest expression of 
what the French physiologists term the milieu interne.” *” 
We may look at nerve-cells from three points of view. In 
the first place, we must take account of them as individuals. 


Nerve-cells like all other cells lead individual lives— 
they breathe, they assimilate, they dispense their 
own stores of energy, they repair their own substan- 
tial waste; each is, in short, a living unit, with its 
nutrition more or less centred in itself."’ 


In this respect nerve cells are like other living cells. In 
the second place, nerve cells present a high degree of 
contagion. 


They have in exceptional measure the power to 
spatially transmit (conduct) states of excitement 
(nerve-impulses) generated within them.”’ 


When we approach the problem from the social point of 
view we find a similar relation between individual organ- 
isms. This phenomenon is especially prominent in the 
case of crowd excitement and certain artificial and patho- 
logical states. In the third place, the reactions of nerve 
cells have the function of integration. 


In the multicellular animal, especially in those 
higher reactions which constitute its behaviour as a 
social unit in the natural economy, it 1s nervous reac- 

+® Thid., p. 4. 


Mee bid pa: 
RL DIC aD e: 


158 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


tion which par excellence integrates it, welds it 
together from its components, and constitutes it from 
a mere collection of organs an animal individual.” 


The simplest level of conduct, that of the reflex arc, thus 
foreshadows the characteristics of the most complex levels 
of behaviour, including the interactions of the highest 
organisms. 

If we turn now to the instincts and emotions, we find 
the same fundamental functions of selection, suppression, 
integration, and projection. They have, as McDougall 
has pointed out, their cognitive, affective and motor 
aspects. Cannon’*” has shown that emotions owe their 
specific and unique character to their being neural pattern 
reactions, resembling in this respect reflexes such as sneez- 
ing, though of course vastly more complicated. “They are 
ingrained in the nervous organization,’ and respond 
“Instantly and spontaneously when the appropriate ‘situa- 
tion’ actual or vividly imagined is present.” They are 
among the higher animals for the most part cortical pat- 
terns, but Sherrington’s experiments on decorticated dogs 
and cats show that “at least one such pattern, that of 
anger, persists after the removal of the cerebral hemi- 
spheres.” We cannot, it is true, neglect expression as a 
factor in emotions. They “gain expression through dis- 
charges along the neurones of the autonomic nervous sys- 
tem,” and in this way get what James called their “bulk.” 
But the setting off of the autonomic system depends upon 
the intensity of the emotional stimulus rather than its 
specific character and could not possibly differentiate the 
emotions. 

That the emotion patterns are genuine energy patterns 
is shown by their effect upon secretions and muscular 
contractions and by their stimulation of the adrenal gland 
which increases blood sugar in intense excitement. It is 
also shown in pain and great emotion by the “hastening 

Ry LUTOe pul 


2° See Walter B. Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and 
Rage, 1920, especially pp. 280-283. 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 159 


of the coagulation of blood” and in general by the “energiz- 
ing influence” which “the fierce emotions” exercise. 

The sentiments, again, as Shand *° has shown, manifest 
still greater complexity of pattern. This is due in part to 
inherited connections between emotions. 


Every primary impulse, whether it is independent 
or belongs to a primary emotion, is innately connected 
with the systems of fear, anger, joy and sorrow in such 
a way that when opposed, it tends to arouse anger; 
when satisfied, joy; when frustrated, sorrow; and 
when it anticipates frustration, fear; these symptoms 
being similarly connected together. 


In the case of such a complex sentiment as maternal love, 
the innate connections are immensely complicated. But 
the complexity of patterns increases vastly in the course 
of individual experience as the emotions become organized 
in terms of patterns of imagination and their objective 
implications. In general, 


every sentiment tends to include in its system all the 
emotions, thoughts, volitional processes and qualities 
of character which are of advantage to it for the 
attainment of its ends, and to reject all such constitu- 
ents as are either superfluous or antagonistic. 


The sentiments tend to form a hierarchy in which greater 
systems are superimposed upon lesser systems, including 
the bodily systems,’ until a character is formed,—the 
more inclusive systems exercising “vigilance” over the 
more primitive. They are in Shand’s phrase, “forces; they 
work in certain ways and in certain directions. They are 
within us to perform certain functions.” *° 

That the meaning patterns of the cortex are an integral 
part of the complex volitional arc and issue in certain 
definite motor patterns for the control of conduct is 

20 See Dr. A. F. Shand, The Foundations of Character, pp. 35-106. 


ALDI) Doh 
PLDI Dosti o: 


160 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


attested by the whole trend of modern psychology. The 
motor patterns owe their definiteness and control to the 
meaning patterns and in turn make them effective. No 
impression without expression is a psychological common- 
place and holds of the cerebral levels as well as of the 
lower levels. Language patterns are only one form of 
this expression, though socially a very fundamental one. 
All the facts go to indicate that we must regard the nervous 
system as a hierarchy of energy systems with increasing 
complexity and interconnection as we proceed to the upper 
centres. Each level has its own quality or functions which 
pathological evidence has enabled us to dissociate from 
the total system. 

We must not forget the integrity of the nervous system, 
when we talk about the reaction of nerve centres. It is a 
singular fact that the lower centres owe their definite and 
stereotyped functioning to the control by the upper cen- 
tres. In the case of stimuli of high intensity, the control 
is broken; and then the lower centres act in an indeter- 
minate and unpredictable way. When through accident the 
lower spinal centres become separated from the upper part 
of the nervous system, they respond by mass reflex and in 
other diffuse ways. They no longer project their response 
to definite points, but relapse to the old defensive reac- 
tions of withdrawal of the entire part of the body. 

If it is true that the lower centres are dependent upon 
the upper, it is no less true that the upper are dependent 
upon the lower. This dependence, moreover, is not merely 
an executive dependence, but concerns the whole life of the 
upper centres. We all know how deeply rooted are the 
instincts and emotions in the primitive reflexes of the 
organism. And the sentiments in turn are rooted in the 
emotions. But imagination, too, even in its highest stages 
of creative organization, is closely dependent upon the 
primitive part of us. I have in mind, not merely the seri- 
ous complications of the sex life which often accompany 
intense work of the higher type, but the more positive 
fact that our higher activities draw their energy, colour, 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 161 


and zest from their aliveness to sense experience and the 
passions. This will no doubt be recognized with reference 
to the more sentimental imaginative activities, but it is 
true of abstract thought, too. No person who is a mere 
intellectualist is likely to make any profound discovery 
or to move the imagination of human beings. The really 
great thinkers are poets at heart. And it is when we 
express the emotions rather than when we repress them 
that thought takes wings, that creative imagination comes 
to free and momentous expression. Your dry-as-dust intel- 
lect may do valuable secondary service, but it is not likely 
to do first class work. You must have a passion for beauty 
or your fellow men or something greater than yourself to 
sustain great thought. There is something almost infantile 
and primitive about genius that ensures youthful freshness 
to its work and makes its world a world of perpetual won- 
der. This is merely another way of saying that the great 
and fruitful intellect is not a mere cerebral language 
machine but lives clear down to his toes. All the levels 
are tapped and converge to give reality to his thought. 
The whole organism, and not least the despised parts 
below the diaphragm, contribute their vital share to the 
real life of creativeness. Your whole cubic capacity must 
be alive, to borrow an expression from William James, 
if you are to do your best intellectual work. 


Mind as a Social System of Patterns 


The study of individual behaviour in the abstract does 
not require the concept of mind. Individual psychology is 
an unreal abstraction. We can, it is true, study the human 
individual as a system of indicative signs or implied mean- 
ings, just as we study geological strata or the life of plants. 
But this is behaviour as the physiologist studies it and 
should be called what it is, viz., physiology. The issue 
has been confused by the fact that psychology in the past 
has followed no consistent principle of explanation. When 
it has dealt with the more elementary processes of habit, 
emotion, and sense perception, it has leaned on physiology, 


162 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


or pretended to do so. When, on the other hand, it has 
dealt with the more complex processes, such as the senti- 
ments, thinking, and will, it has fallen back on social 
psychology. It has, as a matter of fact, started with the 
adult behaviour of the psychologist as differentiated, 
integrated and stereotyped through social relations, but 
has abstracted from those relations. Instead of treating 
of the individual within the matrix of social relations, 
under the control of which he acquires his habits, atti- 
tudes, and perspectives, it has made him an abstract 
entity. It has forgotten that the world as it exists for 
the psychologist, with its things, qualities, and relations, 
its values and attitudes, its play of free ideas and its 
organized will, is the product of social communication and 
interaction, made possible by a highly evolved language 
and tradition. ‘The physiologist, who starts with the 
simple reflex of the nervous system and follows this 
through more complex levels of selection, integration, and 
control, is at any rate consistent in his explanation. In 
the most complex behaviour of the organism he sees the 
play of ever more complex mechanical causes. And though 
these may not furnish the sufficient reason of the behav- 
iour, they are at any rate an index of behaviour, and make 
a consistent story. It is assumed that the organic mech- 
anism in its entirety—neural, chemical, physical—would 
indicate all the various complexities of behaviour, could 
we follow it, which we cannot. At any rate, it is all we 
have so long as we deal with the individual organism in 
the abstract. a4 

Mind is essentially a system of intersubjective mean- 
ings or valuations, and of controls as resulting therefrom. 
We may speak of mind as a superorganic system of rela- 
tions as we may speak of life as a superchemical system. 
In any case each is a unique type of energy system with 
characteristics of its own. In the absence of expression, 
mind is inchoate and ineffective. It can at best be regarded 
as potential from the spectator’s point of view. The 
formative idea is the soul, whether in the individual or in 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 163 


the group. And this is created in social relations and 
can only be understood through social relations. Mind 
comprises, it is true, relations to the physical world as well 
as to the social. But the former exist as meanings only 
because they are selected and integrated into social pat- 
terns. The  physico-organic concept of mechanism 
employed by physiology is itself such a socially constructed 
system of patterns and should be worked so far as it can 
be worked. But it proves inadequate when we come to 
deal with social relations. I may add in passing that it is 
not necessary that the formative idea or system of ideas 
should be conscious at all times. It is at most only partly 
conscious at any one time; and at times, as in sleep, it 
may not be conscious at all. The mental patterns are, no 
more than the neural patterns, dependent on conscious- 
ness for their existence, though they cannot have signifi- 
cance without consciousness.” 

It is only when we are concerned with expressive signs, 
with social relations, that the concept of mind becomes 
necessary. Here we have a new perspective of relations, 
a new reading of the facts. We no longer deal with neural 
patterns except as instrumental to the new type of rela- 
tions. We are concerned with a new type of energy field 
where will relations, the craving for association and recip- 
rocal sympathy, the intention to express and to be under- 
stood, the desire to share in a common life, become the 
important facts. We have to do with teleological causes— 
the realization of needs and interests in social relations. 
We are concerned only indirectly and instrumentally with 
mechanical causes and effects. Here we have selection, 
inhibition, facilitation, reinforcement, and integration of 
conative impulses, obeying in the main the same laws that 
we have become familiar with in. the physiological field. 
There is the grouping of like impulses with like, there is 
the struggle for dominance and the selective inhibition of 
the incompatible impulses, the facilitation of the compat- 


*8T have dealt more fully with the relation of the concepts of 
consciousness and mind in A Realistic Universe, Part II, Macmillan, 1916. 


164 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


ible and their integration into a common direction by the 
controlling pattern or set of will relations. In this pattern, | 
duration plays an even more important part than in the 
physiological patterns, for here we have the past conserved, 
not merely in the slowly formed patterns of biological 
heredity, but also in the cumulative tradition, embodied in 
language, art and institutions, and moulding the habits of 
each generation, through education and social sanctions, 
into conformity with itself. And we have the projection of 
the future, which is not merely the projection of the past 
but has a forward-looking implication—due to our being 
part of a larger cosmic order which we cannot understand, 
but which somehow determines our course and our survival 
conditions. We have fusion, as in the orchestration of a 
vast number of musical instruments of varying timbre, of 
the various complex energy patterns of individuals and 
groups into a common tradition and a common life; and 
here, as in the physiological field, we have to take account 
of the quality, the intensity and the number of compo- 
nents as well as the total situation of the controlling energy 
field. This forms a continuum of a unique sort, cutting 
the individuals into various planes, protopathic or epi- 
critic, according to the type of control and the situation 
at the time. 

The fact that we are so organized that every instinct 
and emotion is provided with selective inlets or receptors 
for sympathetic response to corresponding instincts and 
emotions in others, and that, further, we can only realize 
our nature and find our satisfaction in association with 
others, goes to show that the evolution of life has assumed 
a new type of energy pattern in which the group is the 
unit rather than the individual, just as in the multicellular 
organism the organic whole becomes the unit of control 
rather than the cell. The types of group-unity vary all 
the way from the nutritive unity in the lowest stages of 
animal life, through the organic family of the bee, to 
organized self-planning society. The future is dark to 
us, but judging from human history so far and from our 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 165 


newly gained psychology of human nature, it would seem 
that if the race is to survive it must evolve a pattern of 
social relations which furnishes, on the one hand, a max- 
imum freedom for individual human nature and, on 
the other hand, a maximum of sympathetic co-operation 
for common ends. Only such races as can meet these two 
tests are likely to survive in the long run. 

Whether we translate the facts into mental or physio- 
logical terms, it is clear that we must explain behaviour 
in terms of energy systems or patterns and their action, 
reaction and interaction with the energy patterns of the 
environment. ‘The subject-object relation now becomes 
one of significant selection on the basis of past and future 
perspectives. With the aid of language mechanisms, 
meaning patterns, ingrained by heredity and organized by 
personal experience, function as judgements, expressed, 
supplemented, and corrected in terms of social relations, 
present and past. Selected impulses now become data for 
conscious construction and reconstruction to meet the 
needs of life. And life includes pure thought. It takes 
delight in successful action, theoretical as well as practical. 
But in any case, the process is a trial and error process. 
The final test of proper thinking is proper conduct within 
the dominant purpose. This is as true in the realm of 
theoretical construction as in the sphere of practical 
judgment. 

Mind patterns may express themselves not merely in 
immediate social relations, but also in forms of matter, 
institutions and language. A great genius may express 
his meaning in musical patterns of vast complexity like 
a symphony of Beethoven, or in sculpture like the Zeus 
of Phidias. He may express his thought in the building 
of cathedrals, or in systems of philosophy, or in great 
epics. And these patterns, with the will communicated 
to them, continue to live in the history of the race long 
after the creator has passed away, thus giving his mind 
a continuous vitality in history for long periods of time— 
perhaps latent for centuries but always ready to spring 


166 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


into renaissance when the proper conditions arise. Thus it 
is that English culture has been organized and continues 
to be organized through the ongoing genius of a Shake- 
spere, who in turn is ever reconstructed’ in the living 
tradition of the race. So Plato lives through the cen- 
turies and makes us Greeks, while we in turn give his 
genius the colouring and vitality of our time. Such influ- 
ences are lines of motion entering into ever new sys- 
tems, yet always retaining their individuality as the 
historic pageant passes, dwimdles or grows, through the 
endless perspectives of space-time. 

Having once been compelled to introduce the concep- 
tion of mind in order to understand social relations, we 
can now return to the individual and study his behaviour 
from the social point of view. Strip the individual of all 
social reference and nothing remains but a bare physio- 
logical automaton. But it is different when we consider 
the individual as part of the group. It is obvious that 
meaning and language are the articulation of the need for 
expression and reciprocal sympathy, 7.e., they are group 
planes which intersect individuals. Creative imagination, 
whether concrete or abstract, exists to organize and give 
form to this need for expression and mutual understanding. 
The sentiments are emotional patterns moulded upon 
social objects in the course of group relations. Even the 
instincts are all equipped with inlets for social sympathy. 
They are highly contagious. The cerebrum, in short, 
becomes an organ for social interactions, past, present and 
future, 7.e., 1t 1s an organ of mind. 

As for the other neural levels, they too acquire new 
significance. It has been customary to start with reflex 
arcs and to judge the other reactions by that type. If we 
start with the assumptions of the physical sciences, it is 
natural to treat this arc as purely physico-mechanical. 
And having once made this assumption, there is no place 
where we can stop; and we are under the necessity of 
projecting the whole of conduct on the plane of the 
physico-mechanical. But we can now interpret the func- 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 167 


tioning of the lower centres from the social point of view. 
They have their own reality, their own contribution to 
make to the life of social relations. This fact is unfor- 
tunately overlaid and obscured in our artificial society. 
The cortex is pre-eminently an abstract language mecha- 
nism, and its increasing tyranny over the lower centres, 
owing to extreme centralization of functions, tends to sup- 
press unduly the more primitive functions. Under 
artificial conditions such as hypnosis and the spontaneous 
trance, and in the less abstract life of primitive peoples, 
we have an opportunity to observe a more immediate 
sense of social relations which is largely suppressed in us 
except under conditions of extreme crowd excitement. 
The increasingly abstract epicritic control gives us our 
intellectualistic theories of individualism, so foreign to 
primitive society. In genius there seems to be an unusual 
persistence of the concrete type of immediacy and hence 
an unusual liveliness of the immediate and _ first-hand 
values. 

The question may well be raised whether the extreme 
cortical centralization of the organism, with the consequent 
suppression of the primitive sense of rhythm, movement, 
and concrete imagination, which is the course of civiliza- 
tion, is not a tendency to senility and therefore self- 
defeating. If the psychic attitudes make a difference, 
directly or indirectly, to the blood, and if the blood in 
turn makes a difference to the germ-cells, then it may well 
be that the absence of proper stimuli and interactions may 
cause certain tendencies in the germ-cells to atrophy, or 
at any rate to make them available only under such 
exceptional conditions as to make them of little service. 
This should give us pause in our artificial and murderous 
civilization. 

It is evident that we must look upon the human indi- 
vidual as a hierarchy of pattern-controls, where the lower 
levels borrow definiteness of response from the higher 
levels and the latter in turn use the lower as instruments 
in their realization. The growth and adaptation of the 


168 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


organism cannot be understood as a fortuitous interaction 
of the parts of the organism. ‘There is implied an integral 
control of the whole through which the parts are organized 
and set their bounds. We cannot, for example, throw 
the entire responsibility for the adaptive growth of the 
organism upon the ductless glands, important though they 
are in the effective life of the whole. For the ductless 
glands must in turn be controlled in order to serve the 
economy of the whole. 


If there is too little thyroxin secreted into the blood 
by the thyroid gland of a child, this whole gland 
weighing hardly more than an ounce, that child may 
become a cretin with not only dreadful physical de- 
formity, but with the deformed or incomplete mind of 
an idiot. If there is a little too much, the child may 
have a goiter, protruding eyeballs, a too rapid heart 
and a restless, irritable brain. The pituitary gland 
weighs one-sixtieth of an ounce, but if it is removed 
death ensues. If its secretions are too small in amount 
during childhood, growth is inhibited and a dwarf 
is produced, usually with psychic derangements; if 
too large in amount giantism occurs often with 
accompanying imbecility. The secretions (called 
adrenalin) of the adrenal glands, two small bodies 
lying near the kidneys and weighing about one-seventh 
of an ounce each, have, almost certainly, a marked 
effect on our nervous system, revealed by strong 
emotional responses to the variation in the amount 
of the secretions. Crile declares that “apparently 
adrenalin alone can cause the brain greatly to 
increase its work.” ** 


But important as the secretions from the ductless glands 
are in the economy of the organism, we cannot attribute 
to them the final control in the life of the organism. We 
must still ask the question: What controls the growth 
and activity of the ductless glands in such delicate har- 


**Vernon L. Kellogg, Mind and Heredity, 1923, pp. 102, 108. 


SENSATION, IMAGINATION, AND MIND 169 


mony with the whole? Obviously there must be a whole- 
control which guides the process of differentiation and 
integration of functions. And this genius of the whole 
must be the result of the interaction of the developing 
organism with the cosmos. It is only in this interaction 
that the actuality of the whole is created. And in the case 
of the normal human individual this whole-pattern, this 
actuality of the process of creative adaptation, includes 
the mental level as its final stage of development and the 
final control to which the other levels become instruments. 


CHAPTER V 
Tur MINDED ORGANISM AND THE CosMOSs 


The Mind-Body Relation 


SANCTA SIMPLIcITAS! a martyr for the truth is said to 
have exclaimed when an old woman brought a few sticks to 
lay on the pyre on which he was being burned. But it 
is not only the pious who sin from too much simplicity 
in their loyalty to tradition. The scientist often falls into 
the same sin from too much sophistication. Science has 
more than once sacrificed truth to its simple faith in 
mechanism. It has been a tradition in science to explain 
the complex from the simple and to ignore the quality of 
the complex. Thus in explaining human behaviour, it 
has been customary to start with the reflex arc and to 
attempt to explain the more complicated functions in 
terms of this. The functions of the lower centres, such 
as the spinal chord, have been assumed to be purely reflex 
functions; and in turn the functions which are bound up 
somehow with the cerebrum have been regarded as only 
reflex functions of greater complexity, differing from the 
former merely in degree. Thus man becomes an autom- 
aton. But there are limitations to such an approach. 
It ignores the effect of the interrelation of the lower centres 
with the higher centres. We know now that in the higher 
organisms, the functioning of the lower centres is not 
explainable entirely in terms of these. We must take ac- 
count of the control exercised by the higher centres. There 
is a qualitative and not merely a quantitative difference 
in the functioning of the lower centres when they are in 
integral relation to the higher centres from that when 
they are dissociated from the higher centres. In the 
integral relation the responses are graded and discrimina- 
170 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 171 


tive. They also have a space pattern and temporal pattern 
which are absent in dissociation. The physiologist has 
learned to study the life of a human individual as a system 
of controls constituting a more or less definite hierarchy. 
The lower centres of the nervous system owe their definite 
stereotyped character to the fact that they are under the 
influence of more complex centres. They have indeed their 
own life and characteristics, but it is only when they are 
functionally dissociated from the hierarchy of controls 
that they show their own peculiar character. They then 
act by mass reflex instead of responding to localized stim- 
ulation. They no longer respond to graduated intensity, 
but by the all-or-none reaction, 2.e., if they respond at all, 
they respond in the same way. 

To the behaviourist it seems that all that is necessary 
is to be thoroughgoing in our physiological account of 
neurones and synapses and their relation to the rest of 
the organism with its glands and muscles, etc., and then 
we shall have a complete account of conduct. But there 
is another level, another type of control, which must be 
taken into account if we are to understand human 
behaviour, however complete may be our physiological 
description. Mental behaviour is known in a different way 
from physiological. Impulses, emotions, desires, senti- 
ments, judgments, volitions are known as unique facts 
and not as vito-electrical or chemical changes. We have 
to do here with a new quality of control which must be 
understood in its own terms. And mental control, like 
cerebral control, overlaps. We have now come to realize 
that physiological functioning cannot be understood inde- 
pendently of mental functioning. Emotions, beliefs, 
attitudes, exercise control over physiological reactions. 
They not only influence the executive set and tone of the 
nervous and muscular systems, but alter the secretion 
of the glands and, indirectly, at any rate, the composition 
and energy of the blood. It is hopeless, therefore, to try 
to understand the action of the human organism in terms 
of purely physiological categories. 


172 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


The physiological method is at home in dealing with 
the simplest types of life, but it does not suffice in deal- 
ing with the higher organisms. Here we require new cate- 
gories. If we have been wrong in supposing that the reflex 
actions of the spinal chord and other subcortical centres 
can be explained without reference to the cerebrum, so we 
are equally sinning against truth in ignoring the controlling 
influence of the mental field. The set of the cortex in 
attention, the working of its mechanism of synaptic habits 
in sustained thought, can-as little be understood without 
taking account of the mental field of interest as can the 
definite reactions of the spinal chord without the char- 
acteristic pattern of the cortex. There is a vast difference 
between the operation of the mechanism of cerebral habit, 
which we approximate in purely automatic reactions, and 
its operation in creative imagination, even if we neglect 
for the time the fact that in a creature with mind the 
habits themselves are forged under the control of the 
dominant interest. 

It may be argued that, though the physiological 
categories are not adequate to explain human conduct, 
yet physiological changes—muscular, glandular, neural, 
—sufficiently indicate behaviour. In this case we could 
have a complete descriptive account in physiological 
terms even though this should prove inadequate as 
a causal explanation. Such types of behaviour as 
imply purpose and thought could then be identified 
and described purely through their physiological expres- 
sion if we could follow this thoroughly. This would 
be like trying to study the differential reaction of the 
cerebrum by studying the reflexes of the spinal chord. 
It assumes that a lower level of functioning can completely 
express a higher level. But even granting this assumption, 
we should still be wrong in attributing the behaviour in 
question to the lower level—in ascribing the differential 
quality of the cerebrum to the spinal chord and still more 
in ascribing the differential quality of mind to the cere- 
brum. But, further than that, such a monistic theory of 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 173 


expression and control runs amuck against the plurality 
and relativity within the hierarchy of levels. The lower 
levels are not mere functions of the higher levels. They 
have their own history which antedates, as a matter of 
fact, that of the higher in the stream of heredity. They 
have their own organization, their own inertia and within 
certain limits their own life. Hence the control exercised 
by the higher levels over the lower is relative. The integra- 
tion is not absolute. Even under conditions of normal 
integration, the reflexes of muscles and glands respond 
only in certain quanta relations and in certain general 
ways to the intricate shadings of feelings and thoughts, as 
we come to know them in social intereommunication. 
Bodily expression is at best a rough and inadequate 
medium for indicating the nuances of mind. It is through 
the artificial and spiritualized medium of language and 
art that minds enter into the possession of a common world 
of meanings. 

We can neither express the lower levels as functions of 
the higher levels, nor can we express the higher levels as 
functions of the lower. The body is not just a transparent 
vesture through which we can read the innermost workings 
of mind. Nor is mind a mere chiaroscuro of bodily 
changes. We cannot project the behaviour of the human 
individual on one plane. The monistic conception of 
control is too simple to meet the actual facts, whether it 
be the monism of the materialistic physiologist who tries 
to explain all behaviour in terms of physiological reflexes, 
or of the psychological idealist who tries to express it in 
terms of categories of meaning and purpose. We shall 
not have a true account of human life unless we are will- 
ing to give due recognition to all the levels in the hierarchy 
of human organization with their inertia and relativity. 
We are indeed physiological mechanisms—vito-electrical 
and chemical—but we are not just physiological mecha- 
nisms. And we cannot understand even the functioning of 
these unless we give due recognition to the more that we 
are. Physiological mechanisms do not act by themselves 


174 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


but in integral relation with mental attitudes. We are 
minds too and not just physiological mechanisms. But, 
on the other hand, we are not abstract minds. We must 
understand mind in its integral relation with the whole 
organism. Without this, mind becomes an emaciated 
ghost, an impotent abstraction. The life of mind, as we 
know it, includes the organism with the whole gamut of 
its activities within a unique control and in integral rela- 
tion with its cosmic environment of which the social 
environment is a part. 

Psychology has come to recognize that at any rate in 
emotion we must take account of the entire organism 
with its evolutionary history and its relation to the 
environment, and not merely of its intellectual aspect. To 
be sure the James-Lange theory goes to the opposite 
extreme and tries to express the emotion entirely in affer- 
ent terms. But a mass of sensations can express neither 
the origin nor the nature of an emotion. It presupposes 
first of all a certain psychological set in the way of inter- 
est; and the specific emotion which is stimulated—fear, 
anger, laughter, ete-——can be understood only with refer- 
ence to this set. The same external stimulus may give 
rise to any one of several emotions according to the integral 
situation at the time. A man who confronts you with 
clenched fists may give rise to fear or anger or laughter in 
accordance with your perception of the situation. And 
the emotion that results owes its unique character to the 
whole situation as perceived and not to the mere mechan- 
ical fusion of a mass of sensations. The James-Lange 
theory is right, however, in insisting that an emotion is 
not just an intellectual abstraction, but involves the func- 
tioning of the entire organism in a specific way in response 
to the external environment. 

In conceiving the environment, we must take account 
not merely of the physical stimulus and its evolutionary 
relation to the organism, but we must take account also 
of the social environment with its sanctions. Our percep- 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 175 


tion of the situation is not just a perception of a physical 
stimulus, but of its significance in terms of the social 
milieu in which we have been brought up and in which we 
move. This determines not only the mode of reaction, 
but it determines largely the specific emotion which we 
feel. A piece of cloth dragged in the dust might stimulate 
no emotion at all. But if the piece of cloth is our country’s 
flag, and if the act is perceived as an insult by another 
nation, then our anger rises at once. How we show our 
anger as a nation may differ widely according to circum- 
stances, and in any case is controlled by certain formali- 
ties between national groups which differ widely from the 
primitive response. If physical conflict results, it shows 
little relation in method to the animal conflict of the 
jungle. 

But it is not only in emotion that we must take account 
of the integral relation of mind to the organism and the 
environment, physical and social. It is true of the whole 
gamut of psychological functions. Perception is not an 
abstract faculty but the integral functioning of an interest 
in relation to a present situation where the interest itself 
presupposes a real duration of past experience which fur- 
nishes the guiding field and where the whole tension of 
the organism, including cerebral mechanisms, bodily pos- 
ture, and the adjustment of the sense organs, are integral 
parts of the functioning of this interest in this specific 
environment. In memory, both in the making and in 
recall, we must likewise take account of the control by an 
interest, working through cerebral mechanisms and in 
‘integral relation to the entire organism, striving to meet a 
specific situation or problem, which in turn owes its signifi- 
cance to our past experience as members of a particular 
civilization. Creative imagining or thought involves still 
greater definiteness of control, still greater complexity of 
experience, still greater complexity of neural mechanisms, 
still greater complexity of relations to organic, physical, 
and social milieux. Here must be included the capacity of 


176 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


using language as signs of absent situations and the capac- 
ity of analysis or taking account of abstract aspects of com- 
plicated situations. 

What is important to note here is that mental func- 
tioning is not something apart from organic functioning, 
but organic functioning at a new level, under a higher con- 
trol not expressible in terms of chemical or vito-electrical 
categories. In the case of mental control, the whole set 
of the organism is changed, including the functioning of 
cerebral and other neural mechanisms, muscles, glands, 
skeletal posture, heart, lungs, ete.—all of which organs 
in turn contribute their sensory and affective complement 
to the mental situation. The elements of the organism— 
chemical and neural—may be supposed to be the same, 
but they exist in a new set or organization. The cells of 
the spinal chord, for example, may be conceived as func- 
tioning at different levels—as part of the spinal chord 
structure with its history, as part of the cerebral hierarchy 
with the new creative synthesis this involves, and as part 
of a unique mental control. 

We may with Alexander speak of the organism, func- 
tioning at the mental level, as minded organism, to indi- 
cate this integral relation. In the words of Thomas 
Aquinas: 


Body and soul are not two actually existing sub- 
stances, but out of the two of them is made one sub- 
stance actually existing: for a man’s body is not the 
same in actuality when the soul is present as when 
it is absent: it is the soul which gives actual being.’ 


But if we use the Aristotelian language of potentiality and 
actuality we must be careful not to read into the lower 
levels more than belongs to them. We cannot agree with 
Alexander that | 


each new type of existence when it emerges is express- 
ible completely or without residue in terms of the 


1 Contra Gentiles, ii, 69. 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 177 


lower stage, and therefore indirectly in terms of all 
lower stages; mind in terms of living process, life in 
terms of physico-chemical process, sense quality like 
colour in terms of matter with its movements, matter 
itself in terms of motion.” 


Mind is not expressible in neural categories, not even those 
of the cerebrum. It marks a new level of organization, a 
new quality of behaviour, a new pattern control in which 
the whole organism functions differently from the levels 
of reflex and habit, including even the cerebrum. For all 
that the physiological conception of the cerebrum can 
express is a mechanical system of increasingly complex 
reflexes and habits. To say that mind emerges from the 
physiological categories of reflexes and neural habits con- 
veys no meaning. No doubt mind emerges in the life- 
stream, but it does not emerge by magic from non-mental 
categories. It emerges by creative trial and error adapta- 
tion to a cosmic environment which possesses the char- 
acter of mind. 

When Aristotle and Aquinas speak of the human mind 
as the actuality of the human body, they take the human 
type with its heredity for granted. Given human heredity 
in its normal environment, we may expect a human being 
to complete its growth span and to manifest the charac- 
teristics of the typical stages of this growth. Neither Aris- 
totle nor Aquinas were concerned with the evolution of 
the human species from lower types. If we take humanity 
at a certain stage of development for granted, and if we 
take a certain type of environment for granted, then we 
may speak of the stages of human development as reali- 
zation or actualization of the potentialities of a human 
individual, bearing in mind that this actualization is a 
creative development involving a certain growth span and 
a certain complexity of milieux. An individual may then 
be spoken of as having a characteristic entelechy, form, or 
quality. This is merely saying that the individual in ques- 


* Space, Time and Deity, Vol. II, p. 67. 


178 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


tion is a unique organization, the creative outcome of all 
the co-operative factors. Aristotle does not try to account 
for the characteristic entelechy of a human individual or 
of the human species. He merely notes that there is a 
certain characteristic form or organization which not only 
emerges in the life history of the individual but which is 
latent in this history from the beginning and guides the 
development. Aquinas has here the advantage in being 
able to invoke the creative activity of God, who adds a 
characteristic soul. 

We cannot here enter into the theological problem of 
creation. But we may agree with Aquinas that mind is 
a creative addition. From an evolutionary point of view, 
mind is an incarnation due to the interaction of matter in 
its history with a cosmos which possesses the mental level. 
It is not a miraculous emergence from non-mental cate- 
gories, nor is it added arbitrarily from without, as it nat- 
urally would seem to a mind foreign to the evolutionary 
conception of life. When mind does appear in the fulness 
of time, it is a unique level of control interpenetrating the 
lower levels and giving new quality and tone to the func- 
tioning of all the levels. We have no longer a mere physi- 
ological organization of organic mechanisms. But we 
have a mental organization of life, a minded organism. We 
have a new type of functioning in relation to the environ- 
ment. For mind, as we know it, is not an abstract entity, 
but an energy system. It is the abstract word which per- 
petuates the idea that mind is either a thing apart or 
nothing; and a thing apart is indistinguishable from noth- 
ing. Here extremes meet. For if we can account for the 
functioning of the organism without mind, then mind 
becomes superfluous. It is because mind overlaps, because 
it makes a difference to the total functioning of the organ- 
ism, that we require the concept of mind in our account 
of human behaviour. Mind, as we know it, is minding. 
It is dynamic. And the same is true of its characteristic 
traits. They are not abstract faculties but types of func- 
tioning. We should say not perception, but perceiving, 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 179 


not thought, but thinking, and this functioning includes 
the milieu. | 
We cannot regard mind and body as two separate sets 
of facts accidentally joined. Our modern conception of 
the relation of soul and body was vitiated at the start by 
the false bifurcation which Descartes fastened upon mod- 
ern thought. Descartes conceived mind and body as two 
absolutely distinct substances—mind being conceived as 
a thinking, non-extended entity situated somewhere in the 
brain, body as an extended non-thinking thing including 
the life of the organism with its functions. Without mind, 
the organism for Descartes is an automaton whose behav- 
iour can be stated in the laws of mechanics. Descartes 
conceived animals below man as such automata. In man 
mind can exercise a certain regulative function, without 
altering the quantity of motion in the body. In more 
recent terminology it might be compared to a catalytic 
agent which may suspend or delay physical operations 
without affecting the quantity of their energy. Mind for 
Descartes has a characteristic activity of its own, that of 
thinking or clear and distinct ideas, though being situated 
in the brain at the junction of the nerve currents (in the 
pineal gland), it is more or less perturbed by the commo- 
tion going on in the body, and hence we have emotions, 
passions, and the secondary sense qualities. The ideal 
situation for mind would be, of course, when it works in 
isolation from the body, as he supposed it does in pure 
mathematical thought. The mind can see most clearly 
when it is a disinterested spectator of the sense world. 
The question naturally arose how such disparate entities 
as mind and body could have any commerce with each 
other. How can an unextended idea budge an extended 
atom in the fashion required by the billiard ball concep- 
tion of action and reaction? Descartes himself recognized 
the difficulty, and when pressed in the matter admitted 
that the action of the one could only be regarded as the 
occasion of the action of the other. In other words, we 
cannot imagine how the interaction takes place, but the 


180 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


fact of interaction must be accepted. It was natural, how- 
ever, that his successors should speculate about the mode 
of interaction and the Occasionalists tried to supply the 
efficient cause. It is not the first time that philosophers 
when they have created an impasse by their false abstrac- 
tions have invoked the assistance of theology to patch up 
their difficulty. For Geulinex, God acts as mediator 
between mind and body, producing corresponding changes 
in either on the oceasion of change in the other. The 
events then appear as though there were interaction. 
Events in mind are followed by events in body, and vice 
versa, and all goes merry as a marriage bell. 

But somebody is always taking the joy out of life for 
the speculative philosopher, and someone threw a monkey- 
wrench into the speculative machinery by asking how 
mind could know what happened in the physical world, 
being completely isolated in fact. Malebranche tried to 
get around the difficulty of occasionalism by a brilliant 
detour. At least mind knows mind and the human mind 
exists somehow in the mind of God, its creator. In the 
mind of God, there are ideas of the events in the physical 
world and their interrelations, for the physical world is 
but the fiat of God, the realization of his ideas in space 
and time, and everything in the physical world happens in 
accordance with the ideas of God. These are the real 
agents in the physical world. Hence what does our mind 
require but to watch the scenery in the mind of God where 
our mind lives, moves, and has its being? The difficulty 
of knowing the physical world has been bravely overcome, 
but the physical world has disappeared in the effort. 

In the meantime, Spinoza, brought up on the Cartesian 
dualism, had come to the conclusion that mind and matter 
can no more meet than east and west. They cannot act 
upon each other, yet there is correspondence. Hence why 
not assume that, instead of being substances, mind and 
body are but aspects or attributes of one substance, two 
different languages, as it were, in which the true sub- 
stance expresses itself? On such a theory correspondence 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 181 


can be accounted for without running amuck against the 
difficulties of interaction. It is a magnificent attempt to 
bridge a false dualism. But to an honest mind like Spi- 
noza’s who wishes to be fair to all the facts, there are 
difficulties. If mind isa series of ideas corresponding with 
physical changes, idea corporis, then it is clear that the 
linkage of causes and effects is the same; but the real 
nexus of causality becomes physical, and mind becomes 
what Huxley has called an epiphenomenon. On the other 
hand, if activity in our experience means purposive con- 
trol or, as Spinoza states it, clear and distinct ideas, then 
bodily states, with their sensations and affections, become 
confused states of mind; and we lay hold on reality as we 
reduce these states to system and in the last analysis as 
we know them in the intellectual love of the whole, which 
for Spinoza is God. This gives an exalted status to soul 
and its destiny but gives a doubtful status to body. 

The theory of parallelism has played a considerable 
role in recent thought. The fact is that psychology has 
not succeeded in emancipating itself from the Cartesian 
dualism; and parallelism has seemed a convenient half- 
way house to metaphysical idealism or metaphysical 
materialism according to the philosophic bias of the psy- 
chologist. But parallelism does not bear scrutiny as a sci- 
entific hypothesis. I do not think we need to take seriously 
the theoretical objection that parallelism between such dis- 
parate facts as mental and physical is absurd. For paral- 
lelism, as Spinoza uses the term, means correspondence, 
and we can conceive a one to one correspondence between 
disparate sets of facts. The visual musical score corre- 
sponds thus with the auditory symphony, though they 
are entirely disparate sets of facts. The real objection 
is that the theory of parallelism runs counter to evidence. 

We know since Weber that the relation between phys- 
ical stimuli and psychological discrimination is a quantum 
relation. Physiological processes must reach a certain 
intensity before they can overcome the inertia of the 
mental energy system. Weber investigated this relation 


182 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


in the field of sense perception. The law of inertia holds 
not merely for the minimal threshold of a specific sense 
such as pressure, 7.e., for perceiving the physico-physiolog- 
ical process at all, but it holds also for the difference thresh- 
old, i.e., perceiving an increase of stimulus. A certain 
finite fraction of the stimulus must be added in order that 
a difference may be observed. To be sure, if this were an 
absolute relation, we could still establish a simple mathe- 
matical correspondence between psychological differences 
and finite physico-physiological quanta, as Fechner 
attempted. This would not be parallelism, however, in Spi- 
noza’s sense, which implies infinitesimal correspondence, 
1.€., correspondence between quanta indefinitely small, as 
small as you like, approaching zero. Leibnitz tried indeed 
to establish such correspondence by assuming unconscious 
mental processes which by their summation should become 
conscious. But aside from the absence of evidence of such 
processes, the problem would be merely transferred from 
the relation between physiological and mental processes 
to the relation between unconscious and conscious mental 
processes. Here, at any rate, the finite quantum relation 
would reappear. It is simpler to assume that physico- 
physiological differences which cannot be taken account of 
by mind do not exist for mind. 

Fechner’s theory of an absolute finite correspondence 
between physico-physiological processes and psychological 
processes breaks down for two reasons. The correspond- 
ence within any one sense-domain is relative to the range 
of the relation. Our discrimination is more acute for a 
certain portion of this range, aside from the fact that there 
is a certain minimal threshold and a certain maximal 
threshold where there is no discrimination. But the corre- 
spondence is also relative to the psychological situation at 
the time—to the competition within the field of attention. 
Differences which are discriminated under some psycho- 
logical conditions are not discriminated under other condi- 
tions though they are of the same physical intensity. 
Hence we cannot establish any absolute correspondence 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS | 183 


whether infinitesimal or finite. The evidence shows, how- 
ever, that there is a quantum relation between physico- 
physiological processes on one hand and mental processes 
on the other. While this relation has been investigated 
thoroughly only within the field of sense perception, we 
have reason to believe that it holds for the relation 
between physico-physiological and mental processes gen- 
erally. In other words, it requires a certain quantum of 
physiological intensity, varying under various conditions, 
for the mental level to be awake to physico-physiological 
processes. And, on the other hand, we have reason to 
believe that it requires a certain quantum of mental inten- 
sity to produce certain characteristic differences in physi- 
ological processes. The effect of intense emotional excite- 
ment upon certain glands, as for instance the effect of 
intense emotions of fear and anger upon the secretions 
of the adrenal gland, has now been investigated, not to 
speak of the more obvious effects upon the muscular, 
respiratory, and circulatory systems. But here, too, the 
relation is relative both to mental complexity and to the 
inertia of the physiological processes. Whether, therefore, 
we approach the problem from the relation of physico- 
physiological processes to mind or mental processes to 
body, the assumption of an absolute one to one parallel- 
ism breaks down in the light of evidence. 

There is a further difficulty when the question of knowl- 
edge is raised: mind conceived as parallel to body and 
having by hypothesis no commerce with body can know 
nothing about body, not even its existence. No wonder, 
then, that psychological idealism gives short shrift, with- 
out even Christian burial, to the Cartesian concept of 
body. For is it not a ghost of the philosophical imagina- 
tion? There is in reality only mind—subjective mind, the 
life of ideas in their cognitive unity. Body is but the 
appearance of one mind to another in the external relation 
of sense perception, and this relation itself is due to our 
finite limitations. In reality everything hangs together 
by internal relations, 7.e., by relations of meaning and 


184 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


value. When we know reality as it is, taking our own 
subjective experience as the model, it is through and 
through mind; and in the last analysis it must be con- 
ceived as one all-inclusive mind having many modes, a 
stupendous philosopher. We do not need to worry further 
about the mind-body problem. The problem itself is a 
fiction of our imagination, since there is no body. 

This seems to settle the matter. But the modern mate- 
rialist, fortified by the Darwinian theory of evolution, goes 
back to Descartes’ starting-point with new weapons. Did 
not Descartes hold that animal behaviour is explicable 
without soul, in terms of mechanics? But have we not 
learned since Darwin that the difference between animal 
structure and behaviour and that of human structure and 
behaviour is one of degree merely? The human brain is 
very much like that of the higher animals, though some- 
what heavier in proportion to the total body weight than 
that of other mammal brains (though not of some birds). 
It seems more complex in its external anatomical features 
and must be more complex in function (though we know 
very little of the internal dynamics of the cerebrum, except 
what physiology has stolen from psychology and attributed 
to the brain). If we grant that mental functions are 
entirely dependent upon bodily structure, what can pre- 
vent the materialist from holding that what we are pleased 
to call mind vs the functioning of bodily structure at a 
certain level of complexity? Descartes was on the right 
track in dealing with animal behaviour, but was haunted 
by the old ghost-soul in dealing with human behaviour. 
Hence his absurd dualism of mind and body, and the con- 
fusion of philosophic theory that followed. 

But the materialistic theory founders on the rock of 
evidence. Psychological processes cannot be reduced to 
neural mechanics. No doubt we must take account of 
reflexes and neural habits as real facts; but they are not 
adequate to explain mental functioning. There is more 
to memory and recognition than just neural mechanism. 
There is a control based upon interest, a teleological cate- 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS _ 185 


gory. And this is still more obvious in organized purposive 
behaviour. We are not just creatures of reflex and habit. 
We must, in some types of behaviour, recognize a tele- 
ological control of reflexes and habits. Meaningful behav- 
iour is a new level of organization. We can appeal to one 
another as minds; and knowing one another as minds is 
different from the interactions of physiological organisms. 
Minded organisms behave differently from organisms lim- 
ited to chemical responses and neural habit. A new sort 
of co-operation is possible on the mental level—that of 
sharing in a common world of ideas and intelligent prepa- 
ration for the future. Mind can act to change the course 
of physiological processes as shown in psychotherapy. 
There is, moreover, a mental pathology—confusions, 
obsessions, diseased complexes of ideas, which can be cured 
only through the appeal to the mind, if at all. Physiolog- 
ical materialism is based upon the assumption that we 
can express higher levels in terms of lower levels. But 1t 
misses the quality of the higher levels; and it fails, as we 
have seen, to give a true account of the functioning of 
the lower, since this functioning is in part due to their 
relation to the higher. Materialism is a dogma which men 
must always ignore in their practical relations with each 
other. It is true, of course, that we are physiological 
mechanisms, but we are more than physiological mecha- 
nisms. And we cannot even understand physiological func- 
tioning in a human being without taking account of this 
more. From the point of view of cosmic evolution, it 
would be truer to say that the body is evolved for the 
mind or, in the language of Plotinus, that the soul makes 
the body, than to say that the mind is a mere function of 
the body, for a minded organism is the whole, the actuality, 
which creative adaptation has striven, at least in favoured 
instances, to accomplish. Mund is not added as an acci- 
dent to the process of material evolution. 

Physiological materialism and psychological idealism 
have been compensatory in the history of thought. They 
have emphasized different aspects of the artificial bifur- 


186 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


cation into mind and body. Materialism has emphasized 
the reality of body, the importance of the physical 
organization, and has contributed to the understanding 
of the physiological mechanism. But it has missed the 
significance of the higher types of behaviour; and because 
of its one-sidedness it has even failed to account for physi- 
ological functioning in the higher organisms. Psycholog- 
ical idealism has emphasized the importance of mind, of 
significant behaviour; and in this it has based itself upon 
the solid facts of experience. But in failing to recognize 
the réle of matter in the economy of minded organization, 
it has failed to understand even mental functioning. Both 
physiological materialism and psychological idealism, in 
attempting to project the facts of human life on one plane, 
have failed to see the real relation of mind and body. 
Mind needs body no more than body needs mind in the 
true economy of human behaviour. If an artificial dual- 
ism, whether as interaction or parallelism, fails to meet 
the evidence as regards human behaviour, so does an arti- 
ficial monism which, proceeding from the artificial bifur- 
cation of mind and body, tries to account for the facts in 
terms of one member of the dichotomy. 

Nor does the instrumental dualism of M. Bergson, how- 
ever picturesque it may be, explain the true relation of 
mind and body. M. Bergson, it seems, regards the brain 
and organism as an intermediary between sensation and 
movement. 


All the facts and all the analogies are in favor of a 
theory which regards the brain as only an interme- 
diary between sensation and movement, which sees in 
this aggregate of sensations and movements the 
pointed end of mental life—a point ever pressed for- 
ward into the tissue of events, and, attributing thus 
to the body the sole function of directing memory 
towards the real and of binding it to the present, con- 
siders memory itself as absolutely independent of 
matter. In this sense, the brain contributes to the 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS _ 187 


recall of useful recollection, but still more to the pro- 
visional banishment of all the others. We cannot see 
how memory could settle within matter; but we do 
clearly understand how—according to the profound 
saying of a contemporary philosopher (Ravaisson)— 
materiality begets oblivion.°* 


The human mind seems to be a tremendous reservoir of 
memories and other psychological processes which press 
against the gate of the dam but can only get through in 
part because of the constraint of the body. 


It would seem that the human mind ceaselessly 
presses with the totality of its memory against the 
door which the body may half open to it: hence the 
play of fancy and the work of mmagination—so many 
liberties which the mind takes with nature. It is 
none the less true that the orientation of our con- 
sciousness toward action appears to be the funda- 
mental law of our psychical life.* 


No doubt M. Bergson has the right intuition when he em- 
phasizes, as against physiological materialism, the distinc- 
tive and real life of the mind. But as usual he offers us a 
metaphor in lieu of explanation. We are not concerned 
here with the fact that in Bergson’s metaphysics matter 
has no status, that it is merely the downward trend of 
life. In dealing with the relation of mind to body, at any 
rate, he accepts the old dualism. It is true that mind fur- 
nishes a plus element which is not expressible as physi- 
ological mechanism. It is true also that where the level of 
mind exists and functions, physiological mechanism must 
be regarded as instrumental to mind. But mind and body 
do not exist as abstract compartments in the fashion that 
Bergson pictures them. 

Without going into detail here as to the nature of mem- 
ory and imagination, we must insist that the relation of 


8 Matter and Memory, p. 232, translation by Paul and Palmer, 1911 
* Ibid., p. 235. ; 


188 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


mind and body in mental functioning is an integral rela- 
tion and not a mere external relation. Mund does not live 
in independence of body, nor body of mind. But mind 
carries on its characteristic activities through the body 
mechanisms and the body mechanisms function in a differ- 
ent way because of the integral relation to the mental 
level, as the spinal cord functions differently because of 
its integral relation to the cerebrum. If mind and body 
cannot be stated as two aspects of the same thing, as in 
Spinozistic parallelism, neither can they be stated as two 
independent compartments having, as Professor Carr 
would say, a merely tangential relation to each other. 
Mind must be conceived as interpenetrating the whole 
body organization and giving it a new trend and quality. 
In the evolution of our earth from inorganic matter to 
organic matter, and from organic matter to minded matter, 
new levels are creatively added in the interaction of geo- 
logical history with the structure of the cosmos. Life and 
soul are not latent in the geological process from the begin- 
ning as metaphysical vitalism would have us believe. This 
runs counter to the evidence as we have it. 

It must be clear now that modern theories of mind and 
body—starting with the Cartesian dualism of extended 
thing and thinking thing, and then trying vainly to make 
east and west meet, and equally vainly to state one in 
terms of the other—have been futile and ended in an 
impasse. We must take a fresh start and in doing so 
we must go back for historic orientation, not to Descartes, 
but to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Body and soul 
constitute one integral unity in minded control. ‘A man’s 
body is not the same in actuality when the soul is present 
as when it is absent” or, in more modern terminology, the 
physiological organism with its hierarchy of structures 
does not function in the same way when it is in integral 
relation with the mental level as when it is dissociated 
from this level. The mental level superimposes a new set 
upon the whole hierarchy of physiological mechanisms, as 
the integral relation to the cerebrum superimposes a new 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS _ 189 


set upon all the centres below it. It is not a question of 
mind and organism, but a minded organism. Mind as we 
know it is not exclusive of the body, but a new control, 
a new organization superimposed upon the vito-electrical 
levels of the organism as these are superimposed in a 
hierarchy upon one another. A new quality is added to 
behaviour with the advent of mind. Mu§nd, therefore, is 
not statable in terms of physiological processes. It 1s a 
plus factor and gives a new direction and tone to these 
processes. Minded behaviour is a unique quality of behav- 
iour. It is not the actuality of the body, but a new actual- 
ity, the actuality of a completer life, a creative addition 
in the course of evolution of a new pattern control, a new 
energy system, not resolvable into the categories of 
physico-chemical nor into those of neural systems. It 
establishes a new level of normality and abnormality. It 
functions not merely to delay physiological processes, but 
it gives a new organization to the life of the organism. It 
is meaningful behaviour and not merely mechanical 
behaviour. 

We cannot emphasize too strongly that mind is a unique 
energy field with a structure of its own. But we must also 
remember that it overlaps. Its control is pervasive. The 
whole scale of physiological reactions—sense reactions, 
spinal cord reactions, muscular reactions, secretions 
—are different because of it. The whole functioning of 
the organism. in relation to its environment—its responses 
and inhibitions—is different from what it would be under 
some other type of control. We must take behaviour as 
an integral whole. Mind, organism, environment consti- 
tute a unit in behaviour. And we must recognize the 
mental type of behaviour for what it is. Minded behav- 
iour is a real type of behaviour, and we cannot separate 
mind from its behaviour. Neither can we reduce minded 
behaviour to non-mental behaviour as materialism does, 
though the physiological levels come to participate in mind 
as the spinal chord participates in the pattern structure 
of the cerebrum. 


190 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


There is a sense in which the mind as an energy pattern 
is present in the body and is a quality of the body. It is 
the sense in which the cerebrum can be said to be present 
in the spinal cord and to be a quality of the spinal cord. 
The cerebrum does by its distance messengers communi- 
cate its pattern to the spinal cord, and the spinal cord 
has a different quality of reaction because of this control. 
Yet the structure of the cerebrum as such is not present 
in the spinal cord. The spinal cord cannot function 
as the cerebrum. The cerebrum has a unique structure 
and a unique mode of functioning of its own. The spinal 
cord responds as it can by virtue of its own history and 
structure to the energy pattern of the cerebrum. And so 
while the mental energy level communicates its pattern 
through distance messengers to the various levels of the 
physiological hierarchy—cerebrum, thalami, spinal cord, 
ete.—these respond as they can by virtue of their own 
history and organization. But they cannot respond as 
mind. Only mind can respond to mind in kind. The 
mental level has a unique structure and a unique mode of 
functioning of its own. It is the whole integral relation 
which can be spoken of as minded, not the parts. Perhaps 
this is what the schoolmen meant when they spoke of pres- 
ence in activity but not in essence, though we must not 
separate essence and activity. It is the essence which is 
active. This we express when we speak of mind as an 
energy pattern. We may say that mind is related to the 
cerebrum in the same way that the cerebrum is related to 
the subcortical centres, remembering that mind overlaps 
and is the ordering pattern of the whole. 

But the question may still be raised: How can mind 
influence or control matter? If we were limited to the 
Cartesian concepts of matter and mind, this would indeed 
be an insuperable difficulty. But science no longer con- 
ceives of the atom as an impenetrable bit of extension 
with a constant geometrical shape. The atom to-day is 
conceived as a complex energy system. Extension is no 
longer conceived as an absolute property of matter, but as 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS _ 191 


relative and functional, as are all other properties. The 
appearance of continuous extension in three dimensions, 
which matter in the gross presents, is itself due to the 
interaction of a certain external energy system of electric 
charges with our sense organs and nervous system. To 
the physicist with his more adequate instruments of 
thought and observation, matter is far from being a con- 
tinuous extension. It is an energy organization of vast 
complexity. Even inertia, the most fundamental property 
of matter, is conceived in energy terms by such physicists 
as Einstein. Science has travelled a long distance from 
the little homogeneous and impenetrable blocks of Leu- 
cippus. On the other hand, mind is no longer conceived 
as an abstract ghost. It is known through activity, func- 
tion; it is an energy organization. Once we state the rela- 
tion of mind to body in energy terms, it ceases, at any 
rate, to be an absurdity as it turned out with the Carte- 
sians. We are familiar with energy exchange between 
different types of energy systems and so are no longer 
frightened by abstractions. The question becomes one of 
evidence; and we have increasing evidence of the effects 
of mental attitudes and feelings upon physiological proc- 
esses, and vice versa. If the tone of the organic system 
affects mental health and activity, it is equally true that 
mental tone affects bodily health and well-being. And 
we have experimental evidence as to the quantitative 
effects of mental processes upon the secretion of glands 
and other physiological processes. 

Nor need the epistemological problem raised by the psy- 
chological idealist trouble us. We grant that we must get 
our evidence of the body from sense experience either 
directly or by implication from sense experience. Without 
raising the metaphysical problem here, we must. insist 
that we know reality through its functions within our 
experience. Now, some bodies respond as minded bodies, 
or, if we prefer, a minded organization of sense properties. 
Other bodies do not respond as minded bodies. Whether 
we speak of bodies as material bodies or as groups of sense 


192 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


properties and possible sense properties does not affect 
the problem, since what we mean by matter is a certain 
type of energy organization or group of properties and 
possible properties. The distinction of minded body and 
mechanical body remains as real as ever; and practically 
we must distinguish between them and we must investigate 
scientifically the difference in behaviour of the two. No 
change in terminology can destroy the difference in func- 
tion of various organisms or of the hierarchy of functions 
within the same organism. We cannot ignore mind if we 
would understand human bodily functioning, neither can 
we ignore body—its levels of organization and inertia—if 
we would understand mental functioning. We must be 
fair to all the facts as we can see them. 

In recent physical theory, the interest has shifted from 
abstract entities and their particular external relations to 
energy fields with their curvature within which the enti- 
ties move. The physical unit of an electron in motion is 
not just the electron, but the electron with its energy 
field, and this field in turn must be conceived within a 
cosmic field with its unique curvature. We must conceive 
the minded organism as a group of physiological mecha- 
nisms moving within a mental field with its unique struc- 
ture, and this field in turn must be understood in relation 
to other mental fields, and all must be understood with 
reference to the cosmic field and its unique structure. It 
is in the creative adaptation of physiological evolution to 
this cosmic field that minded organism arises, that a new 
level is added to the physiological levels, bending them 
within its unique curvature. 


The Individual in the Environment 


We have seen that the bifurcation of mind and body 
leads to an impasse and that the integral unit is the 
minded organism. We must now show that the bifurca- 
tion of mind and environment is equally impossible. The 
tendency in the past has been to conceive human traits 
in too abstract a fashion, as though they existed apart 


~ 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 193 


from the interaction of the individual with his environ- 
ment. This shows itself in the sharp separation we are 
accustomed to make between nature and nurture in the 
individual life history. On the contrary, we must conceive 
individual traits as functions of the interaction between 
the system of energies which constitutes the stream of 
heredity, on the one hand, and the various systems of 
energies which constitute the environment, physical and 
social, on the other. ‘These two factors are never sepa- 
rated; there never exists such a thing as an individual in 
the abstract or an environment in the abstract, but the 
two form one integral whole. The individual life stream 
cannot exist in isolation. It is part of an integral whole 
of interacting energies and draws literally its life blood 
from it. With this clearly in mind we can see how arti- 
ficial it 1s to attempt to describe individual traits as due 
elther to individual nature alone or to nurture alone. 
Some traits, such as the purely organic characteristics, and 
such adaptations as the reflexes and vague instincts exist- 
ing at birth, are due to the fairly uniform interactions 
between individual life history and its prenatal environ- 
ment. Hence we are apt to treat them as independent of 
the environment. But prenatal reflexes and instincts in 
the higher animals are due to a long period of interaction 
between the developing embryo and the body life of the 
mother. The latter is the immediate and direct environ- 
ment of the embryo until birth. We know but little of 
the interaction between the developing life of the embryo 
and the life of the mother in the higher animals except 
that the embryo must share the blood of the mother, and 
we know now that the blood is an enormously complex 
system. But under normal conditions of interaction the 
results, as might be expected, are fairly stereotyped. Our 
limited experiments seem to indicate roughly the same 
reflexes and the same instincts (if such they can be called) 
in the newborn human babe. With the exception of such 
rudimentary organic responses as grasping, sucking, cry- 
ing, shrinking from pain and loud noises, the so-called 


194 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


instinct’ are due to interaction between the individual and 
the outer physical and social environment. 

We may illustrate this process of integration by the 
so-called social instincts. The sex feeling, at first vague 
and inchoate, may become integrated into love for a mem- 
ber of the other sex through social suggestion and accord- 
ing to the approved pattern of social custom. Sex love in 
a normal human being is not just an animal instinct of 
reproduction. It involves idealization and socialization 
as integral aspects of its structure and its satisfaction. 
Wanting such specific integration, it may manifest itself 
as general restlessness and discontent, relieved by fancy 
and dreams. In noble natures like Plato and Spinoza, 
the primitive sex energies may be integrated into the 
higher pattern activity for abstract truth and beauty 
and intensify its emotional zest. In a human being, 
at any rate, the organic restlessness is indeterminate 
and may be integrated into a variety of responses to 
the environment. Parental restlessness may remain 
an aimless reminiscence of inchoate race _ feelings. 
It may under favourable conditions become integrated 
through the social tradition into love for family and 
offspring. It may in a noble bachelor like Bentham 
become love for human kind, especially its downtrodden 
portion. The vague craving for companionship may 
remain inchoate; it may become integrated through social 
contacts into loyalty to a particular herd; or it may, in 
rare natures, become love of an impersonal presence in 
nature. There is not in human nature, as in some insects, 
any completely organized instinct which makes it possible 
for a human being to realize its race destiny independent 
of experience. The incompleteness of man’s biological 
heritage is its glory and opportunity. The nature of the 
lower animals is complete and bounded while man’s nature 
is incomplete and plastic. We may say that the oppor- 
tunity of development is in inverse ratio to the complete- 
ness of instinct. In human development the biological 
heritage 1s integrated into the social tradition, and the 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 195 


former is an abstraction apart from the latter. The realiz- 
ing of the tendencies of a human being with the accom- 
panying satisfaction is made possible only by his 
participating imaginatively in social patterns. What we 
call a specific “instinct” in a human being is a social 
integration finding its method in social habits and its 
value in social standards. 

A psychology based upon abstract faculties is supposed 
to be a thing of the past. But it has returned under the 
guise of instincts and capacities. Psychology has treated 
instincts as so many ready-made faculties, existing inde- 
pendently of interaction with the environment. Hence the 
endless debate as to the number of instincts and their 
characteristic manifestations. No doubt there is a certain 
hereditary structure which in interaction with the environ- 
ment shows certain instinctive traits. But these traits do 
not exist in isolation from the environment. They are a 
creative result of the interaction and show, therefore, con- 
siderable variability with the conditions of interaction. 
If they do not appear in a life history, that does not mean 
that they were ready-made but failed to be called forth. 
They only exist as the result of the interaction. If they 
emerge later in one life history than in another, this does 
not mean that they were delayed, but that the ensemble of 
creative conditions did not exist before. Nor can we say 
that a certain instinct in the abstract is the motive of a 
certain behaviour—that men do things, or refrain from 
doing them, because of a fear instinct, or a pugnacity 
instinct, etc. There is a psychological aspect as well as 
a biological to human behaviour and human valuation. 
We must take account of human nature as woven into 
social experience and determined by social standards. 
Abstracted from the network of social relations, from the 
pressure and valuation of the group, instinct is a fiction. 
The same object may call forth an entirely different 
response in different people and at different times. What 
arouses love in some people may arouse hate in others; 
what stimulates laughter under some conditions, may 


196 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


stimulate anger under others. If there is no instinct or 
emotion in the abstract much less is there a sentiment in 
the abstract. A sentiment is an emotion or group of 
emotions associated habitually with certain social objects. 

Intellectual capacity, like instinct, must be understood 
in terms of interaction. The statistics of eugenists as 
regards the inheritance of ability are vitiated by the neg- 
lect of this fact. Children nurtured in the homes of cul- 
tured people like the Darwins have a great advantage 
over children bound to the customs and routine of the 
soil or the factory. But the children of illustrious people 
often fail to maintain the intellectual standard of their 
parents and the children of obscure people sometimes rise 
into eminence. We know no law by which genius can be 
predicted, though feeblemindedness seems to be inherited. 
It is impossible to say how many people fail to rise because 
of lack of opportunity in the form of the proper stimulus 
in the proper period of development. Custom counts for 
a tremendous deal. So far as I know I was the first college 
graduate in my own family, who had lived for generations 
as farmers in the highlands of southern Sweden, remote 
from city life and from institutions of higher education. 
There have been several college graduates in the family 
since I started, and I have had occasion to admire not 
only their ability but the ability of the older members 
of the family who were content to live in quiet obscurity. 
Who knows how many poets and philosophers there might 
have been among those who sleep unknown in the little 
country churchyard? Ability no doubt involves a certain 
quality of hereditary structure. But it is not an abstract 
quantity independent of social interaction. In any ease, 
abilities which are the only facts we know are the result 
of interaction between the individual and society. Stimu- 
lus and training are essential conditions. For, after all, 
ability shows itself as interest; and since we cannot know 
interest in the abstract we cannot know ability in the 
abstract. 

It is absurd to try to study intelligence in the abstract 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS = 197 


or to test intelligence in the abstract. What is attention 
in the abstract, perception in the abstract, memory in the 
abstract, speech in the abstract, reasoning in the abstract? 
They are so many fictions. The so-called intelligence tests 
have been vitiated by the fact that they have failed to 
test the capacity of the individual in terms of the problems 
of his unique life environment. The only way to test the 
ability of a farmer is in terms of the problems which he 
must meet as a farmer, of a mathematician in terms 
of the problems of mathematics, of a musician in terms of 
problems of music. We do not remember in the abstract, 
but we remember through contexts of interest. A good 
memory is a well-organized memory, a memory that 
responds effectively to the requirements of the social 
milieu. The prodigious memory of some scholars is due 
to the organization of impressions in terms of a permanent 
interest. Nor is thought an abstract faculty which can 
be tested in the abstract. It is an organization of material 
in terms of an interest. It involves not merely memory, 
but exact record. Its efficiency depends upon the mastery 
of a certain social technique in the way of method. Think- 
ing about problems of thermodynamics requires a famil- 
larity with the accumulated results in that subject, a mas- 
tery of its technique of method, of mathematical expression 
and record. A good thinker is one who is trained to analyze 
such problems as he sets himself to meet. A good scientist, 
as well as a good poet, “is made as well as born.” Ability 
to think about one type of problems need not be ability 
to think about another type. Men trained in science may 
be easily duped in business. Men distinguished in the 
physical sciences may be easily duped in _ psychical 
research. ‘Training and discipline enter into the capacity 
of the human instrument. No doubt there is a quality of 
each instrument. But this quality must be ascertained 
in the concrete interaction with the social environment. 
Individual genius must master the material and technique 
before it can become creative. It must labour in anguish 
to meet common problems before it can give birth to new 


198 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


insight, whether it be a new scientific hypothesis or a new 
symphony. Discoveries which seem marvellous to the 
layman are often the result of the mastery of technique 
rather than of unusual imaginative power. The dialectic 
of events may seemingly determine the next step to him 
who is prepared. While we cannot all be geniuses, each 
may contribute something of beauty if he has social dis- 
cipline and individual earnestness. It is when soul is 
married to opportunity, in earnest work, in purifying 
pain, in the joy of beauty, that the real vintage of life 1s 
seen, be it rich or be it poor. 

The study of human nature apart from the concrete 
situations of society and nature must therefore remain 
the most unreal faculty psychology. Human nature can 
only be understood when we consider the individual life 
history in the various integral situations into which it 
creatively enters. And here social interstimulation, social 
tradition, social control are for good or ill essential factors 
of the situation. Could we eliminate the social aspect 
from human behaviour, what would remain? We cannot 
say that animal reactions would remain, for they are 
responses of a different organization to a differently 
selected environment. The animals below man are not 
dependent upon society to the extent that man is. The 
guiding life patterns of even the highest animals are 
organic, however much they may be modified in execution 
through trial and error habit-formations, while the guid- 
ing life patterns of man are due to social interaction. To 
be sure, man too has organic cravings of hunger, thirst, 
and sex, but the pattern of their realization is prescribed 
by social custom and, at a higher level, by reflective ideals. 
It is only as nurtured by society that man can live, and 
he is regarded as normal only as his organic cravings take 
on the mental patterns of his group. He may indeed rise 
creatively to higher mental patterns, but when he is inca- 
pable of being guided by mental patterns as the idiot and 
insane he is not an animal. Nor is a mental defective— 
an idiot or imbecile—just a child of a certain mental age. 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS _ 199 


The idiot and imbecile do not merely lack a certain mental 
range of learning capacity, but they are also physiologi- 
cally defective in co-ordinations and physiological tone. 
And this physiological defectiveness is due to the depend- 
ence in man of the lower levels of functioning upon the 
higher. A rift in the lute of the higher levels shows itself 
in a rift in the lower levels. A mental defective is not an 
animal because a normal animal is physiologically com- 
plete. He is not a child of a certain mental age, because 
a normal child of a mental age of two is dynamically or 
prospectively complete in that its growth span, in creative 
interaction with its environment, will take on the custom- 
ary mental patterns which fit the child for its group 
activities. Its normal development includes its social 
integration. 

The physiological method studies behaviour as stimulus- 
response. It conceives behaviour as a dyadic relation. It 
investigates the reaction of a certain physiological mech- 
anism to the energies of the physical environment. This 
method is too simple for the study of human behaviour. 
For human behaviour is essentially triadic. To under- 
stand the conduct of a human individual we must take 
account not merely of an individual with certain abstract 
capacities, on the one hand, and of the physical environ- 
ment with its stimuli, on the other, but we must also take 
account of the social milieu of which the individual is a 
part—the group pattern with its tradition. It is only in 
dealing with the behaviour of material things and of the 
lower organisms that we can state the relation as stimulus- 
response. ‘T’o understand man we must take account not 
merely of the stimulus, on the one hand, and his original 
capacities, on the other; but we must also take account of 
the milieu, the social interstimulation and tradition of 
which he is a part. With the same stimulus and the same 
capacities, different individuals may respond in different 
ways. The French flag produces affectionate response on 
the part of a man brought up in the French tradition and 
hatred on the part of a man brought up in the German 


200 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


tradition, though the flag is the same and though the two 
men are biologically of the same family lineage. 

The besetting sin of modern science has been the 
attempt to describe a higher level of organization in terms 
of a lower. The lower level has been regarded as more 
typical of reality, and the unique characteristics of the 
higher levels have been ignored. Thus science has tried 
to reduce the organic to the inorganic and the mental to 
the organic. The mechanical categories have been given 
undue weight and the teleological categories have been 
discarded. In so doing we have naturally missed the signifi- 
cance of those levels of reality where the teleological cate- 
gories are at home. We have pressed simplification at the 
expense of truth. The saner way would seem to be to 
ascertain the characteristics of each type of organization 
with its milieu. Now, mind has its characteristics and its 
proper milieu as truly as organic and organic systems. 
The milieu of mind is threefold. There is the inner com- 
plexity—the interpenetration of systems within any one 
mental organization—a complexity which surpasses vastly 
that of the organism which is included within the higher 
unity. There is, further, the social milieu, the relation of 
mind to other minds, the intersubjective continuum. There 
is, finally, the milieu of nature of which mind and society 
are part and within which they have been evolved. 

The social milieu is a new level in the evolution of our 
earth, a unique type of creative synthesis, and not reduc- 
ible to the organic type, however many analogies there 
may be and though the social milieu includes the organic 
as part of its mechanism. We may say that mind requires 
the milieu of minds for its expression and life as truly as 
in the multicellular organism one cell needs the other cells 
of its characteristic milieu. The social instincts and the 
highly complex language mechanisms are indications of 
this larger integral milieu of mind. This social interde- 
pendence and intersupplementation of minds must be 
regarded as a new pattern relation superimposed upon the 
organic units. Mental living 1s as impossible without the 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 201 


social milieu as the characteristic life of the cell within 
the multicellular organism is impossible without the bal- 
ance and mutual adjustment of the cells within its char- 
acteristic milieu; and though in each case the individual 
unit may survive the separation from its milieu for a 
time, it cannot carry on its characteristic activities in sepa- 
ration. By this I do not mean to imply that the organic 
milieu and the social milieu are alike. I am merely insist- 
ing that each is necessary for a certain type of life. They 
are, as a matter of fact, vastly different in the type of 
interdependence which they imply. Each is a unique 
pattern relation with its unique characteristics; and each 
must be understood in its own terms. In the biological 
organism the parts have become completely stereotyped 
and subordinated to the life of the whole, while in the 
social organism the whole should be subordinated to the 
freedom and realization of the parts. 

To some the step of nature in passing from the unicellu- 
lar to the multicellular type of organization seems the most 
considerable step in the course of evolution. We know 
that nature experimented a long time in making a multi- 
cellular organism. What led nature to pass from the uni- 
cellular to the multicellular organism? If we speak of 
evolution in terms of equilibrium, we must remember that 
the equilibrium of the multicellular organism did not exist 
before it had been created. The simplest multicellular 
organism is not a mere collection of unicellular organisms. 
Colonies of unicellular organisms existed before there were 
multicellular organisms, and still exist, but they are merely 
a collection of unicellular organisms. A multicellular organ- 
ism involves the creation of a new life pattern as a result 
of trial and error adaptation to the cosmos. The unicel- 
lular organisms have for ages existed in equilibrium with 
the environment and do so exist at the present time. 
Owing to their range of adaptation and their simpler re- 
quirements they will probably long survive the multicel- 
lular organisms which they antedate. It was not natural 
selection which brought about the appearance of the multi- 


202 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


cellular organisms or their evolution, because natural 
selection can act only on life forms as they exist. It is not 
a constructive agency but an agency of elimination. The 
unique adaptation, involved in a multicellular organism, 
must have been prospective until the whole had been 
evolved with its new pattern and equilibrium. The same 
is true of every step forward in the evolution of multi- 
cellular organisms. 

The step from the unicellular organism to the multicel- 
lular is no greater in my opinion than the step from the 
multicellular organism to the social organism. Here again 
we find a prospective construction of a new pattern. 
Society is a new level in evolution, a new step in the 
creative adaptation of our earth to the cosmos. Society 
is not an aggregate of multicellular organisms, any more 
than multicellular organisms are an aggregate of unicellu- 
lar organisms. Society is not an association of organisms, 
but of minds. And minds exist by virtue of this new 
pattern relation. If we speak of society as an association 
of individuals, it is, at any rate, not just analogous to the 
association of cells in an organism, but a new step in crea- 
tive synthesis. Society is no more an addition of indi- 
viduals than a multicellular organism is an addition of 
cells. The equilibrium which is being created in social 
adjustment did not exist on the organic level any more 
than the equilibrium involved in the life of the multicel- 
lular organism existed on the unicellular level. The social 
equilibrium is a new creative adaptation in the history of 
the earth. As in the case of the evolution of the multi- 
cellular organism there are transition forms, such as the 
colony, which are not multicellular organisms, so, in the 
case of the evolution of society, there are transition forms 
which are not societies. If nature has experimented a 
long time in making the multicellular organism, so she has 
experimented a long time in making society. Thus on 
the organic plane we find the nutritive unity in the lower 
stages of life where several organisms have continuous 
cavities and thus share in the conditions of life, but they 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS — 203 


remain organisms. They do not constitute a society. 
There are animals which not only live together in colonies, 
but have a considerable specialization for a common life, 
such as the honey bee. But they do not constitute a 
society. They are rather a superorganism. A superorgan- 
ism with its organic differentiation and coadaptation 1s 
not a society, however admirably adapted to the conditions 
of life. Some animals live in packs. But while they may 
show strong craving for companionship, while they may 
act in common defence and sometimes, as in the case of 
the beavers, co-operate in common maintenance, they still 
act as organisms. They are not social groups. They do 
not co-operate as minds within a common plan and with 
the motive of mutual aid. At any rate, the plan is not a 
mental plan, but rooted in organic structure. 

The psychic relation implied in society is a new quality, 
a new pattern, which cannot be resolved into organic rela- 
tions, however complex the latter may be and even though 
they involve a number of multicellular organisms. Just 
as the cells of the multicellular organism become a unity 
of a higher order than the unicellular organism because of 
a new control, and within this control constitute parts of 
one organic whole rather than a collection of individual 
cells, so individuals in society constitute parts of a new 
psychic whole. Individuals are destined to become mem- 
bers of society, rather than to stalk alone because of a 
new level of organization, a new type of pattern control, 
on the one hand, and new structural qualifications on the 
part of the individuals entering into the pattern, on the 
other. It is because the individuals are structurally consti- 
tuted for a social whole that they are destined to strive 
creatively to discover such a whole. So far as we are 
mental or spiritual beings, we can realize ourselves only in 
a social milieu. If we were merely organisms, we should 
be satisfied with an organic milieu, and there are some 
so-called human beings that scarcely rise above the level 
of organic needs. But mind is evolved in the process of 
cosmic adaptation to respond to mind. It requires a milieu 


204 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


of minds for its expression. This milieu is not merely a 
function of a number of individual minds, though it could 
not exist without them. The individual minds must par- 
ticipate in a common mental pattern with a common 
tradition. They become minds only through sharing in 
this unique experience. A brick building is not just a 
mass of bricks, but bricks ordered and cemented according 
to a pattern; and it is as building material within such 
patterns that bricks are evolved. So human individuals 
cannot be understood in the abstract, but must be under- 
stood through the pattern relations into which they are 
fitted creatively to enter and for which they have been 
creatively evolved. It is in the social milieu that the indi- 
vidual develops mind in the sense of significant response 
to the environment. It is through sharing in the common 
undertakings of society that he develops control and pur- 
pose; and it is through the conflicts arising in these 
common undertakings that he develops individual reflec- 
tion and self-consciousness. 

We must postulate two types of continuity with the 
environment. There is the interaction of the organism 
with the physical milieu of the environment. We have 
seen that there are two stages in this type of adaptation— 
the protopathic stage, the stage of the all-or-none reaction 
to the physical stimulus, and the epicritic stage, where the 
response is graduated to the intensity of the stimulus and 
implies a spatial and temporal pattern relation to the 
external world. But there is another type of interaction, 
the interaction of mind with the social milieu of the envi- 
ronment. This too involves two stages of adaptation, a 
protopathic stage of all-or-none reaction, a diffuse primary 
response without intelligent guidance, and an epicritic 
response which involves a mental pattern—a mental pat- 
tern in the individual responsive to the pattern of the 
social milieu. We must, I think, presuppose an immediate 
protopathic sense of social presence (however overlaid and 
difficult to disentangle) as the background of our articulate 
life of social relations. This furnishes the primitive con- 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS — 205 


tinuum of mind, which is canalized and overlaid by the 
later epicritic cognitive functions. 

We must abandon the absurd theory that we come to 
recognize other minds from the analogies of the bodily 
movements of other individuals with those of our own. 
This theory presupposes a looking-glass knowledge of the 
individual’s own movements which is entirely impossible 
to the young child and was equally impossible to the primi- 
tive man. Science is still largely in the dark as regards 
the relation of mental processes to physiological processes, 
and what knowledge we have is of yesterday. The Greek 
thinkers who laid the foundations of such mental sciences 
as psychology, logic, and zesthetics did not know the exist- 
ence of a nervous system, but they had a large knowledge 
of social relations. We must, I think, regard social rela- 
tions as being deliverances as immediate as sense experi- 
ence. Just as we are immediately sensitive to certain 
physical energies of the environment, so we are immedi- 
ately sensitive to certain mental energies of the environ- 
ment. It is true we may imagine social relations in our 
dreams, as a result of past experience, but so may we 
imagine sense perspectives. There is a development of 
the social sense, as there is of the sense of touch, from a 
protopathic stage of undifferentiated response to one 
another’s presence in the lower animals and in the early 
stages of human development to the highly epicritic dis- 
crimination which is possible in later human development 
with its cumulative experience and system of signs. And 
as In the case of touch and other senses, so in social rela- 
tions we have reason to believe that the protopathic level 
still persists, though under epicritic control, asserting itself 
when the higher level is in abeyance or destroyed as in 
pathological cases. We may, I think, see an approach 
to this in extreme crowd excitement when a civilized peo- 
ple reverts to the primitive animal plane. It does not, of 
course, follow that returning to the protopathic plane in 
mental interaction means the returning to the protopathic 
plane in physiological interaction. The primitive mental 


206 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


plane may have at its disposal the whole range of physio- 
logical mechanisms. In any case the lapse to the primi- 
tive is relative in normal human beings. We must not 
suppose, moreover, that mental adaptation and physio- 
logical adaptation are independent of each other. Mind 
overlaps. It overlaps the physiological hierarchy of con- 
trol, with its reactions to the sense world, furnishing a new 
quality, a new guidance to our interactions with the phys- 
ical world. It also overlaps with other minds. It does 
not function in isolation, but in communication, sympathy, 
co-operation, rivalry with other minds. Mind interacts in 
kind with other minds. It overflows and spreads over 
space as well as endures in time. In the interstimulation 
of mind with mind, where minds interchange their quanta 
of influence, the physical world, including the organic 
body, acts as vehicle and instrument, not as a separating 
wall. We must recognize that social relations are part of 
the same cosmic process of adaptation as sense perspec- 
tives, and that personal histories can be understood only as 
interactions within the social medium. 

The relation of individuals in society is not that of 
arithmetic addition but a creative relation.” This involves 
not merely the creation of a new pattern, but the creation 
of new units, with new characters. The whole-pattern 
and the units must evolve together. Else the pattern 
would be useless. The individuals must, on the one hand, 
have the capacity for language and creative imagination 
in order to constitute society; and, on the other hand, it 
is in the social milieu that these capacities must be crea- 
tively realized. The brain of man, as Professor Watson 
has pointed out, is largely a language organ. It is an 
organ for social relations. Language mechanisms have 
been evolved for social relations. They would be absurd 
abstractions otherwise. The same is true of the social 
traits. It is absurd to suppose that the characteristics and 


°For the nature of social relations see A Realistic Universe, J. E. 
Boodin, 1916, Chapter XI, Individual and Social Minds, pp. 191-204; 
also his article, “The Existence of Social Minds,’ Am. Jour. of Sociol., 
1913, vol. xix, pp. 1-47. 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 207 


capacities of human individuals can be understood in the 
abstract. That has been the result of such false dichoto- 
mies as heredity and environment, the individual and 
society. The characteristics of the human individual are 
the results of creative adaptation to a milieu, not merely 
to physical and organic nature, but also to psychic nature, 
to social relations—not merely to actual social relations, 
but to society-in-the-making, to the incarnation of new 
social patterns, the future kingdom of heaven which a few 
superior souls feel in the making and help in the making. 
New moulds must be created through cosmic adaptation, 
and it is given to the servant of Jehovah, despised and 
rejected of men, to see creatively into the future and by 
sacrifice to help build a new city of God, a new equilibrium 
of spirits. 

We must not suppose that society and individual have 
an invariable meaning and exist only at one level. They 
exist, as a matter of fact, at vastly varying levels from 
association which is not much above the organic to that 
which is prophetic of a new order. The social pattern is 
not less various than the organic pattern. The singular 
is a class term. As the evolution of the multicellular 
organism from the crudest beginnings to the most com- 
plex multicellular organism has required a long process of 
trial and error adaptation with the creation of new and 
more complex pattern responses, so we must expect the 
social organism to require a long process of trial and error 
adaptation before there can be the completest mutual 
adaptation of individuals to each other and the total cos- 
mic environment, before, in short, the full gamut of this 
type of evolution shall have run its course, if indeed it 
ever can run its course in the history of our earth. Cer- 
tain it is that evolution since the dawn of humanity has 
been concerned. primarily with enlarging the scope of 
social adaptation. Organic adaptation seems to have been 
fairly constant during this period. This does not mean 
that the human individual has been constant. For the 
human individual must have undergone continuous adap- 


208 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


tation in the direction of the characteristics which are 
essential in social relations even though the vegetative 
and animal characteristics have been fairly constant. Man’s 
capacity for sympathy, expression and intelligence must 
have increased vastly since the organic beginnings of 
humanity. And this, of course, involves certain corre- 
sponding physiological changes, however difficult to 
determine. But, what is equally important, a new con- 
trol must have developed by degrees which has kept the 
vegetative and animal traits subservient to the new type 
of spiritual unity with its demands. And with greater 
degrees of freedom within society, there must develop 
greater degrees of fitness on the part of individuals to 
co-operate creatively with greater freedom. For greater 
social complexity of institutions and groups requires cor- 
responding intelligence and capacity for self-control. 
The most urgent need of creativeness to-day lies not 
in the discovery of new mechanical instruments, but in 
the discovery of new patterns of social co-operation, more 
adapted to the needs of human nature and therefore truer 
to creative nature. Our advance along the lines of mechan- 
ical invention has outstripped our moral advance and 
threatens the welfare of humanity if not its existence. It 
is not likely that humanity can be destroyed by its newly 
discovered murderous weapons, but it is possible that civi- 
lization may be destroyed. It is dangerous to let a child 
play with dynamite. And morally man has not passed 
much beyond the savage. Man must discover a moral 
formula of co-operation as broad as humanity. He must 
evolve a control of mutual respect and mutual aid based 
upon human beings as human beings. The mechanical 
means of communication have brought human beings close 
together in space, but the pattern for adaptive living 
together on a large scale is yet wanting, or at best is in 
the trial and error stage, with enormous cost to those 
concerned. Perhaps under the tension of stress and suffer- 
ing, man may discover gradually a better way, a new 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS = 209 


equilibrium of life. Demagogues talk about public opin- 
ion and public will, but their appeal is to prejudice and 
their work is to create prejudice. An intelligent public 
opinion and public will is yet to be created, if it can be. 
Only when they are created, when philosophers are kings, 
shall we have sane government. 

We are living in a period of great contraction and ten- 
sion of the earth’s crust. During this period man has 
emerged from the primates, and in the wake of the latest 
ice-age, man, as we know him, appeared. It is in this 
period that the new type of unity—the spiritual type of 
unity—has been forming. While it has been making with 
great rapidity, especially in the last few thousand years, ° 
it is still ragged. Humanity is still imperfectly prepared 
by heredity and still less prepared by organization for 
earth-wide co-operation in purposive endeavour. Perhaps 
the next ice-age which science prophesies may furnish the 
critical test of man’s capacity for sympathetic co-opera- 
tion. Perhaps in the intensity of its struggle a new type 
of man may arise as present man arose during the recent 
ice-age. Future scientists may associate the feverish 
activity of man and the acceleration of civilization during 
the last three thousand years with an unusual throbbing 
of nature’s heart. Certain it is that our evolution is part 
of the evolution of the earth in interaction with its cosmic 
environment. And the geological record shows that the 
periods of great contraction and tension have been the 
periods of the greatest creative activity. It is possible 
that during the long period of relaxation and levelling of 
the earth’s crust, which is sure to follow in the rhythm of 
geological history, mental types, in the way of social 
unities and spiritual patterns, may become as rigid as are 
the organic types and responses now—until a new rhythm 
of the cosmic pulse sets forces forming for a new level 
which we can as little foresee as the unicellular type of 
organism could foresee the multicellular type of organism 
or the latter could foresee the mental type. 


210 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


The Nature of Mind 


We must now enquire more specifically into the nature 
of mind. But in the attempt to arrive at a concept of 
mind we are dogged at the very outset by the ghosts of 
the past, the idols of speculation which haunt psychology 
and retard its progress. The most fundamental of these 
misconceptions is that which regards the mind as a suc- 
cession of events following one another with an “incon- 
ceivable rapidity’—a conception bequeathed by Hume. 
But mind cannot be conceived as a succession of events, 
whether a series of simple events as in Hume or of chunks 
of events, looking backward to a dead past and forward to 
an unborn future, as in recent psychology. The duration 
of mental events is relative to the structure of the mental 
field. In reality the different processes of experience 
travel at different velocities and the same processes travel 
at different velocities at different times. Sensations and 
feelings are comparatively fleeting, but meanings fixed by 
language have a considerable permanence. Attention is 
rhythmic, though by no means so fleeting as we supposed 
when we confused attention with eye adjustments. Our 
perception of immediate events, which is made the basis 
of the specious present, is limited to a few successive 
events, though when there is rhythm and grouping the 
events can be increased. But the limitations of attention 
have nothing to do with the permanence of mind as 
structure. The structural characteristics of sentiments, 
thought, character may remain constant for a large part 
of a lifetime. Hence the responses can be predicted in 
definite situations. 

The fact 1s we cannot understand the course of nature, 
whether on the mental level or any other level, as a mere 
sequence of events. The passing events can have no 
meaning except in terms of energy exchange. Selective 
functioning within any system involves a structural field 
and a relation to a certain environmental situation. The 
physicist does not conceive the physical order of nature 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 211 


as a mere sequence of particular functions. The electron 
moves in a guiding field and its motion must be under- 
stood with reference to the structure of this field. To . 
understand the dynamic equilibrium of the electron fully 
we must understand its relation not merely to particular 
fields, but to the cosmic field. And so we must conceive 
mental events as functions of energy fields with their 
structure and interrelations—mental fields in relation to 
other mental fields and to physical fields, and, in the last 
analysis, to the cosmic field. Mental events like physical 
events are retarded or accelerated by virtue of the control 
of the guiding field. 

We should understand mind better if we compared it 
to a piece of iron than by comparing it to a stream. Iron 
is not just an event or a stream of events, but an organiza- 
tion, a complex pattern, with comparative stability and a 
definite set of characteristics in varying situations. It is 
a centre of exchange with its environment, radiating elec- 
trons and receiving electrons. And its functions vary with 
its relations. When it is connected with an electric cur- 
rent, it reacts differently from its manner when not so 
connected. But the duration of iron is comparatively 
stable. The internal structure of iron is not permanently 
modified by the effects of the past. ‘The elements of the 
structure resume for our purposes their original equilib- 
rium when the stress is over. Organic functioning, espe- 
cially in the more complex organisms, would furnish a 
nearer parallel to mind. Here, too, we deal with energy 
exchange of a certain complicated structure with its 
environment. And this selective exchange is a function of 
interaction, involving both the nature of the structure and 
the nature of the environment. We do not try to explain 
the behaviour of the spinal cord as a series of functions, 
but we explain the series of functions with reference to 
the character of the selective structure and its dynamic 
relations to the environment. As in physics, so in physi- 
ology we conceive functions as energy exchange. But here 
the exchange may modify the functioning of the indi- 


212 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


vidual structure, giving it a new equilibrium, a new twist, 
with reference to future functioning in a similar situation. 
We have here a more plastic duration. We must likewise 
conceive the behaviour of mind as the functioning of an 
energy structure in relation to a specific environment. 
Mental events are a type of energy exchange. The func- 
tional relation is vastly complicated, involving as it does 
a new type of control of the whole organic complex of 
mechanisms and a new type of duration in which the 
functioning of the past can make the difference not merely 
of organic habit, but of mémory; but the mental event is 
none the less an energy exchange between an energy 
structure and its energy environment. 

Psychology must liberate itself from the tradition of 
Hume. Miaind is not to be conceived as a stream of events, 
but as an energy structure, capable of selective interaction 
and exchange with other energy structures. It is a unique 
energy field, existing in specific relations to other energy 
fields, such as the instrumental bodily fields and the 
environing physical and mental fields and, in the last 
analysis, to the cosmic field. What its characteristics are 
must be ascertained, as in the case of physical structures, 
through its selective functioning in its various milieux. 
The passing events of mind, sometimes called states of 
consciousness, can have no meaning except in terms of 
exchange. This exchange involves, on the one hand, a 
certain structure of an energy field and, on the other hand, 
certain continuities with environing fields. This interac- 
tion is sometimes sensed, sometimes not. Being sensed is 
itself the function of the selective interaction of a certain 
structure with a differentiated environment. It implies 
a certain finite quantum relation. The structure of the 
minded organism, furthermore, is such as to be capable of 
cumulative adaptation. The cumulative adaptation which 
is embodied in the structure at the beginning of the life 
history of the individual we call heredity. The cumulative 
adaptation within individual history, we call experience, 
though obviously we can draw no hard and fast line be- 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 213 


tween the two. Neither phylogenetic traits nor ontoge- 
netic can be said to exist in the abstract. They emerge 
only in the creative interaction of the life stream with the 
environment. They are functions of interaction, not ab- 
stract entities. Throughout the history of life, racial and 
individual structure determines exchange and exchange 
determines structure. Events of mind must be regarded 
as instances of energy exchange. 

The events in no wise determine their own passage. 
They form no linkage with each other. One event cannot 
form a habit with another event, nor can one event know 
another event, as an absurd atomistic psychology has sup- 
posed. We may speak of events as space-time perspec- 
tives within a guiding field. Ultimately the impetus to 
differentiation of structure must come from the cosmic 
environment in its action upon matter in the process of 
energy exchange. But the response of matter is deter- 
mined not merely by the action of the environment, but 
also by the characteristic properties of matter in its vari- 
ous stages of organization—inorganic matter, organic 
matter, minded matter. In the case of inorganic struc- 
tures, the action and reaction is direct. It is not neces- 
sary to take into account the past history of the atoms. 
In the selective functioning of organic structures, the re- 
sponse becomes more indirect, having reference to the his- 
tory of the structure, the cumulative effect of habit. In 
the functioning of mental structures the response becomes 
still more indirect, having reference not merely to the 
history of the individual, but to the pressure of the social 
environment with its tradition. The relation is no longer 
dyadic—that of structure to stimulus, but triadic, the rela- 
tion of individual structure to stimulus within a social 
field. Beside duration as individual history, we must take 
account of the duration of society, which acts as a deter- 
mining field. But in neither case can the duration be under- 
stood as events, but must be understood in terms of struc- 
ture. In the act of exchange, the individual structure 
gets a certain twist which endures in later motion and 


214 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


conditions further functioning. It is this twist or set 
which endures, not the events of experience. But the en- 
durance of this set makes it possible to repeat, to a cer- 
tain extent, the events and to recognize the events as 
the same when the situation 1s repeated, though because 
of the cumulative duration, the structure cannot be quite 
the same, and therefore there cannot be absolute repeti- 
tion. Some characteristics must, however, persist or there 
could be no recognition. 

I have so far said nothing about the compensatory tran- 
scendental conception of mind. Kant and his successors 
have accepted from Hume the conception of a stream of 
particular atomic events and then by way of compensation 
have added a transcendental unity in order to synthesize 
these atomic events. Humean associationism furnishes 
the beads and transcendentalism furnishes the string. But 
if it is absurd to suppose that successive states of con- 
sciousness know each other, it seems equally absurd that 
a transcendental unity should know them. It is a mere 
intellectual abstraction and has no functional potency. 
No doubt the transcendentalist is right that a mere suc- 
cession of events does not account for the perception of 
succession and that mind therefore cannot be a mere 
succession of events. But one false abstraction does not 
compensate for another false abstraction. Both associa- 
tionism and transcendentalism have followed a wrong 
scent. The intellectual abstractions of events do not 
compound themselves by some mysterious chemistry into 
mind, nor do they become mind by adding the verbal 
abstraction of unity. The energy pattern of mind must 
exist before it can function as mind and give rise to mental 
events; and mind functions as a minded organism with a 
new pattern control, and not as a verbal abstraction of 
unity which is supposed to accompany all our states of 
consciousness. 

Psychology has ignored the transcendental abstraction 
of unity as useless, which it is, but unfortunately has stuck 
to the particularistic abstraction of atomic events. The 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 215 


climax of this particularism is reached in neutralism. 
Abstract particulars are indeed neutral. They have no 
meaning, nothing can be predicated of them, as Hegel so 
truly pointed out. But can they compound themselves 
into varying patterns—physical patterns and psychological 
patterns? That is indeed the climax of absurdity and 
marks the final bankruptcy of Humean particularism. One 
must have an astounding appetite for magic to entertain 
such an hypothesis. But the magic phrase, creative syn- 
thesis, seems to make anything plausible. For our materi- 
alistic age is nothing if not credulous. Lacking the capac- 
ity for critical thought, it 1s ready to accept any miracles 
so long as they are not in the Bible. But nothing in the 
Bible is half so ineredible as the dogma of chance even 
when disguised as creative synthesis. There is indeed 
creative synthesis everywhere in nature, but it is an orderly 
synthesis, not a synthesis of chance. Kant is right that 
unless we have a sane mind we cannot see any order in 
the universe. 

The behaviourist method of stating reactions in terms 
of physiological structure and ignoring the events of con- 
sciousness serves, at any rate, as a corrective of the old 
phenomenalistic psychology of a stream of events. The 
latter cannot account for the cumulative continuity of the 
stream of events, and the events it has dealt with have 
been intellectual fictions. Behaviourism has tried to 
understand function in terms of structure. The difficulty 
with behaviourism is that it tries to interpret human con- 
duct in terms of physiological structure merely. In try- 
ing to reduce such responses as thought responses to neu- 
ral habit and language mechanisms, it has ignored the 
real nature of the thought function. This is qualitatively 
different from habit and involves a corresponding qualita- 
tive structural level. Minded organism is not just 
organism as the physiologist takes account of it. The 
materialistic implications of behaviourism are mere dog- 
matic prejudice. If we must know structure through 
function, we must be fair in the classifying of functions. 


216 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


And if we are fair, we shall find that there are qualitative 
levels in functioning. There are logical responses, beauty 
responses, religious responses as well as automatic reflexes 
and habits. Food interests and sex interests do not 
exhaust the interests of some human beings. Nor can I 
see why we are more scientific for ignoring the internal sig- 
nificance of responses which are significant. And some 
types of functioning are enjoyed (to use the language of 
Alexander) by some at least as significant, even though 
behaviourists are incapable of such enjoyment. The 
awareness of the significance does not account for sig- 
nificant behaviour, but it is a unique quality of such 
behaviour. 

In ignoring significance, the materialistic behaviourist 
ignores the unique type of exchange which we call social 
relations, for here the exchange is not merely that of 
physical responses, but of meanings. It is a mental 
exchange. The materialist deals with an isolated organ- 
ism, which he conceives in physical categories, and its 
relation to a physical environment. Yet even from the 
organic point of view this is inadequate. Throughout 
animal life there are relations of organisms to organisms 
and these are different from the relations of organisms to 
morganic matter. With bisexual reproduction the indi- 
vidual organism has ceased to be the unit of life, and the 
race becomes the unit of evolution. And this means crea- 
tive adaptation of the sexes to each other in the service 
of the race. Aside from sex, there are various animal 
associations which, at any rate among the more highly 
developed animals, involve a certain restlessness and satis- 
faction which cannot be stated in terms of purely material 
relations unless we make the definition of matter so vague 
as to include all interrelations and possible interrelations. 
But this, at any rate, is not matter as physical science 
understands it. When we come to social interstimulation, 
the conception of material interaction becomes still more 
inadequate. Social communication is an interaction of 
minds and not an interaction of material particles. We 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 217 


must recognize a difference in the quality of interaction 
and not merely a difference in degree. 

We must learn to recognize mind for what it is, with 
its own characteristics and exercising its own type of 
control. We must conceive mind as having its own struc- 
ture and investigate its functions in its various milieux 
as we do the spinal cord and other neural centres includ- 
ing the cerebrum itself. We find that we are confronted 
with a new level of organization and control. The minded 
organism no longer functions as a mere reflex mechanism. 
It is capable of responding by means of memory, judge- 
ment, and reflective thought. It can appreciate beauty, 
ascertain truth and recognize right. Neural mechanisms 
and other physiological mechanisms now function as parts 
of a new pattern control. If we speak in terms of 
behaviour, or from the spectator’s point of view, we must 
at any rate distinguish different types of behaviour with 
their implications of structure; and minded behaviour 
must be distinguished from other types of behaviour. We 
cannot compound it from tropisms, reflexes, and neural 
habits as a confused psychology has tried to do. If we 
mean by mind significant reaction, meaningful response, 
then we find that the development of mind goes hand in 
hand with language, with social expression. It is essen- 
tially a social pattern. 

Modern psychology has ended in a blind alley. It has 
been the victim of two false bifurcations—the Cartesian 
dualism of mind and body, which has been unable to 
account for the functioning of either of them; and Humean 
atomism, which has abstracted mental events from the 
mental field and left them in the air. Modern behaviour- 
ism has thrown overboard both of the dilemmas; but it 
has thrown away the baby with the bath. It has thrown 
mind overboard and therefore can no longer give a true 
account even of physiological behaviour. Aristotle had 
the true intuition when he spoke of mind as the form 
of the body. At any rate he recognized that mind and 
body must be taken as an integral whole. But his 


218 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


emphasis upon teleological categories and his ignorance 
of the physiological levels make him fail to give the latter 
their due. The body is not passivity, contrasted with 
mind as activity. It is, we know now, a hierarchy of 
energy levels of which we must take account if we would 
understand mind. But mind is more than the actuality 
of the body. It does not emerge from organic growth, 
nor is it latent init. Rather it is a new whole-adaptation 
of which organic history is part—a new actuality which 
establishes a new control over bodily mechanisms, which 
in turn make their characteristic contribution to the life 
of mind. We may conceive the organism as charged with 
mind as a piece of iron may be charged with electricity. 
We know that the organism becomes charged with a bio- 
electrical pattern, a nervous system, in the course of evolu- 
tion. When the organism in turn is charged with mind 
in the course of cosmic adaptation, it functions in new 
ways, not as matter or electricity. The merit of the Greeks 
lies in their respect for the reality of mind as potent to 
control and create in its own way. They discovered that 
mental functions, teleological causes, are not statable in 
terms of mechanical causes, but the latter, on the contrary, 
must be regarded as instrumental to mind in the human 
economy. ) 

We must conceive mind as a field of energy, which in 
turn owes its characteristics to the interaction of the life 
stream with the structure of the cosmos, for it is In crea- 
tive adaptation to the cosmos that the organism evolves 
for mind and becomes charged with mind. The char- 
acteristics of this field of energy, we must, as in the case 
of other fields of energy, learn through its functions in 
various situations of which social situations are of prime 
importance. The conception of a field of energy must 
here, as in other domains of science, replace that of 
abstract entities. We must conceive the living human 
individual as a hierarchy of such fields. The cerebrum is 
not a mere collection of neurones, but an energy field with 
its own characteristics and with definite relation to other 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 219 


energy fields such as those of the spinal cord. When the 
fair human form lies stark and still, the quantity of 
matter may be the same, but it has lapsed to a lower 
level in nature.. The hierarchical energy organization of 
the living individual has disappeared. We can dissect the 
material cerebrum of a dead person, but we do not get 
the system of energy which made it function as a cerebrum 
in the living organism. We perceive the material vehicle 
of this system of energy, but no longer as charged with 
and controlled by the characteristic energy field. The 
dead cerebrum responds with no reflexes, no habit, no 
language mechanisms. Its responses are of the more ele- 
mentary chemical and physical kinds. The hierarchy of 
energy fields which constitutes the actuality of the living 
individual cannot be weighed in balances, it cannot be 
observed through microscopes, it cannot be pictured in 
anatomy books. It is an immaterial fact which eludes 
the gross materialist, but reveals itself nevertheless in 
function, in the relations of the living individual to his 
environment. And the mental energy level shows itself 
as truly in the functional relations of the living individual 
as do the physiological levels. It contributes. a new con- 
trol to the physiological mechanisms, modifying the whole 
gamut of their expression. It makes speech mechanisms 
an intricate and subtle organization for expressing mean- 
ings, attitudes and emotions, instead of mere senseless 
jabber. It makes possible the relation of creative expres- 
sion and appreciation of meaning-patterns and leads to 
new types of behaviour, new correlations of matter, and 
a new co-operation of individuals, impossible on the 
mechanical plane. An organism charged with mind and 
controlled by mind is a different kind of individual from 
an automaton of physiological reflexes and habits. This 
holds equally for phylogenetic and ontogenetic evolution— 
the race and the individual. Judged from function, mind 
is a new energy system supercharged upon the physiolog- 
ical hierarchy. And mind like material organization must 
be known through function and is as it functions. 


220 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


There is nothing mysterious about the structure of mind 
and its functioning as modern psychology would lead one 
to believe. This mysticism is the product of its false 
dichotomy. The progress of the physical sciences, includ- 
ing physiology, since Descartes, has made it seem that we 
know more about body than we know about mind and 
therefore that we must explain mental events by stating 
them in terms of physiological structures and their func- 
tioning. But the fact is that we know vastly more about 
mental functioning than we do about cerebral functioning. 
It is doubtful whether we can ever really follow the transi- 
tions of nature outside mental relations. Even our expla- 
nation of the organic category of habit in terms of synaptic 
junctions is largely speculative; and it throws no light 
upon the control under which habits are forged in human 
behaviour. This control must be conceived as interest, 
and interest is a mental category. When it comes to the 
statement of such processes as imagination and thought in 
cerebral terms, our supposed cerebral schemes are merely 
fictions, transferring what we know about such functions 
in mental terms into physiological language. No doubt 
there is an intimate connection between mind and neural 
mechanisms, and, for that matter, between mind and the 
whole organism. We have reason to believe that in the 
course of the creative adaptation of the life stream to its 
cosmic environment, the cerebrum in particular has 
become adapted to the carrying on of mental functioning. 
The great preponderance of language mechanisms in the 
cerebrum shows such an adaptation. This does not mean 
that mind is a neural centre, but rather that neural organ- 
ization has been prospectively evolved for mind in the 
highest animals. And if we must understand mind in 
integral relation to the body mechanisms, it is also true 
that in minded organisms we must understand the func- 
tioning of the body mechanisms in their integral relation 
to mind. Plato is quite right that the causal explanation 
of Socrates’ choosing to remain in prison and to drink 
the hemlock is not to be found in organic impulses and 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 221 


mechanisms. The body for the time being was under 
the dominance of “the Idea of the good.” Thought was not 
a mere spectator of the body, but a potent control. The 
best evidence that our knowledge of mental functioning 
is not intrinsically dependent upon a knowledge of physi- 
ology is that furnished by the great Greek thinkers who 
laid masterly foundations of the mental sciences—logic, 
ethics, and esthetics—in spite of their ridiculous ignorance 
of physiology. 

The “unity of consciousness” now comes to have real 
significance. Mind is not a mere verbal abstraction accom- 
panying all our “states of consciousness,” but is an energy 
pattern manifesting itself in a unique control of the 
reflexes and habits of the biological organism. The minded 
body acts as a purposive whole, using the physiological 
mechanisms for its maintenance and expression. It per- 
ceives as a whole, it feels as a whole, it thinks as a whole, 
it acts as a whole. This unity cannot be accounted for by 
the external relation of parts, whether material atoms or 
psychological atoms. It responds by parts but not as 
parts. It is not the product of the association of ideas, 
for in order to have association of ideas or objects, these 
must be compresent within a field of interest and their 
sequence is controlled by the structure of this field. It is 
a meaningful teleological control which in the stress of 
social interaction becomes conscious of itself as personality. 

Pragmatism has indeed emphasized the _ teleological 
character of mind.” For pragmatism, mind is no longer 


> The most brilliant statement of the teleological character of mental 
processes is that by William James in The Principles of Psychology, 
1890. See especially the chapters on Conception and Reasoning. 

I am using pragmatism in its earlier form, before it started to clear 
away “misunderstandings.” In its later phase ‘it is difficult to distinguish 
it from classical empiricism. It has become merely an exaltation of 
scientific method, of which it has no particular monopoly. It is doubt- 
ful whether pragmatism has made any contribution to scientific method. 
Its contribution which is considerable to its generation has been more 
inspirational than critical, with the exception of.Dr. F. C. S. Schiller, 
whose work has been consistently sceptical even to the extent of denying 
the possibility of truth in the fashion of the Platonic Protagoras. But 
this cannot be said to be the method of science. For a critical analysis 
of pragmatism see the articles of Professor A. O. Lovejoy in the Journal 
of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method. 


222 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


merely a complex mechanism of ideas as in the old intel- 
lectualistic psychology; nor can the significance of thought 
be expressed in the formal relations of linguistic abstrac- 
tions as in the old logic. Mental activity must be expressed 
in terms of needs and their satisfactions. The particular 
interest determines what we shall perceive and conceive. 
Mental processes—memory, imagination, thought—are 
instrumental to the satisfaction of the particular appetites. 
This is the anti-intellectualism of pragmatism. ‘Mind 
is the applying of future results to present situations” in 
the satisfaction of some particular tendency. Thought is 
valid when it 1s an effective instrument for procuring some 
particular satisfaction, as a knife is a good instrument 
when it cuts well. Practical value determines all mental 
- operations. Intelligence exists for action. It is itself 
action, physical experimentation, in the service of a bio- 
logical need and is proved true when it terminates in 
satisfaction. 

It is a drab, bond-servant role that mind plays in con- 
temporary pragmatism. When one considers its contempt 
for logic, it is hardly fair to apply logic to it. And it is 
sure to be considered irrelevant. It seems ungracious to 
say that pragmatism is too intellectualistic. But it con- 
celves consequences and results in as mechanical a fashion 
as the old psychology conceives ideas. They happen to 
the hypothesis according to James. When Dewey says 
that mind is the applying of future results to present situa- 
tions, he ignores the temporal character of the process, the 
creative advance of nature, for, aside from physical 
nature which we can take as practically uniform, the 
future results cannot be thus stated in advance. We can- 
not guarantee that the results when they shall have been 
lived shall be just what we project into the future as 
results. In fact they can never be the same, because they 
get a new significance from the creative interaction with 
the environment, and often this value is the opposite of 
what we intend. It is past results which by modifying 
our mental structure control our conduct in our attempt 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS = 223 


to satisfy our needs. Satisfactions are adaptive congruities 
between a conative structure and a specific environment. 
And therefore they are not agents in the relation. The 
dynamics must be expressed in terms of the selective inter- 
action of an energy structure with other structures. The 
value is not an independent entity, but a quality of the 
selective interaction. It is true that we must understand 
such complicated structures as cerebral and mental struc- 
tures through function. We cannot get an X-ray photo- 
graph of the structure of mind. But we must not 
substitute function for structure. Function must be con- 
ceived as a dynamic relation of structures. The appetite 
for food is a specific type of organization. Its restlessness 
leads to sustained search. The particular satisfaction is 
the result of the congruence of the object selected with the 
organic demand, as Dewey has so well shown.’ The same 
is true in the case of the impulse to knowledge or the 
impulse to beauty. Knowledge and beauty are energy 
relations. We do not seek the satisfaction but we seek the 
creative relation to the objective world which shall har- 
monize with the structure of the impulse. 

Pragmatism is particularistic in its conception of reality 
and values. It makes the vicious bifurcation of particular 
and universal, and then emphasizes the particular and 
treats the universal as an instrumental fiction. The cash 
value of truth consists in particular facts. Human nature 
is a collection of particular impulses; and thought is an 
artificial instrument, gotten from somewhere, to realize 
them. Pragmatists seem to be utterly lacking in a feeling 
for form or structure. And this vitiates all their theoriz- 
ing. It prevents their seeing that particulars are not self- 
existent facts, whether it be particulars of value or par- 
ticulars of sense. Particular events, whether falling bodies 
or acts of perception or satisfactions are instances of func- 
tioning of a determinate structure in determinate relations, 
We can never derive the structure from the mere par- 
ticulars. In the process of creative discovery we mount 

* Dewey and Tults’s Ethics, 1909, pp. 269-272. 


224 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


by creative imagination from instances of functioning to 
hypothesis, 2.e., to a concept of structure, and then we 
verify the hypothesis or suggested structure with refer- 
ence to functioning. Truth is not the sum of particular 
instances, but a conception of structure which accounts 
for the instances as functional relations. A law of gravi- 
tation must account for all falling bodies in terms of the 
space-time structure of the physical world; and the 
geometry of this structure did not emerge from the par- 
ticular perceptions. Else a dog might have seen Newton’s 
law or Einstein’s equations. ‘The law is the contribution 
of the structure of the creative imagination in its trial 
and error process to discover structure in things. If the 
knowledge of the physical world is not a sum of par- 
ticulars, neither can the knowledge of mind be a sum 
of particulars. ‘There too we must rise by creative 
imagination to structure and to such a conception of 
structure as will adequately account for the activities 
of mind. eee 

Pragmatism has failed to furnish the rationale of 
mental functioning. It has failed to grasp the structure 
of mind and has treated it as a mere function in the real- 
ization of particular impulses. An animal organism may 
and does get a certain adaptedness from the trial and error 
process of particular impulses, working in isolation from 
each other, but it does not arrive at creative intelligence 
that way. Mind is a new type of pattern which empha- 
sizes wholeness of functioning. It is not a collection of 
particular impulses with foresight added to each of them, 
but a creative organization of the primary impulses and 
habits into a new perspective. And this new level of 
organization has its own peculiar restlessness, its own 
needs, not reducible to animal satisfactions. It manifests 
itself in creative discovery of truth and beauty and social 
forms of co-operation. And the passion for such creative 
adaptation to the cosmic order may surpass in intensity, 
as it infinitely surpasses in quality, the primitive adapta- 
tions of food and sex. To one who once comes to live 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS = 225 


on the mental plane and is not Just a more clever animal, 
the primitive functions of food, sex, and shelter, become 
instrumental to creative intelligence instead of this being 
instrumental merely to the primitive functions. 
Pragmatism fails in its account of the genesis of the 
mental type of functioning as conspicuously as it fails 
in its rationale, and for the same reason, viz., its lack of 
conception of structure. The central idea in Dewey’s 
account of genesis is that higher categories or types of 
adjustment arise from the conflict of tendencies on a 
lower plane. Thought arises from doubt, from conflict 
and failure of habitual adjustments. By some magic 
the higher categories are produced by friction from the 
lower. But this is not true in fact. A conflict of two 
reflexes may mean the blocking of action, if the two have 
equal potency, or may mean the dominance of one reflex 
which goes off as though the other one didn’t exist. There 
is no evidence in the animal organism that the conflict 
gives rise to thought. Suspended action need not mean 
thinking. On the organic plane, it means just suspended 
action. The same is true of conflict of habits or secondary 
reflexes. It is a mistake to suppose that a conflict of 
habits by itself gives rise to thought. ‘Titchener’s experi- 
ence of rising automatically from his writing to close a 
door which was not usually open and then seeing a pin on 
the floor and stooping to pick it up, but getting up and 
turning round to the desk without either closing the door 
or picking up the pin, is a beautiful illustration of the 
conflict of habits and their mutual inhibition, but there is 
no evidence of its resulting in a train of thought except 
as a psychological retrospect of the completed automatism. 
Most of us go through such automatisms daily with- 
out psychological retrospect. Nor is the problem altered 
if we state it in terms of group customs. Conflict of cus- 
toms by itself does not give rise to thought. Not only 
primitive civilizations but European are full of conflicting 
customs. Not even when the conflict is felt, and doubt 
arises, does the conflict necessarily give rise to creative 


226 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


reconstruction. Few peoples have survived the general 
breaking of the crust of custom, as Bagehot truly 
observes. Conflict of reflexes, habits, customs, in short, 
of automatic adjustments, gives rise to thinking only when 
there is the restlessness of a thought structure seeking 
creative adaptation with its environment, physical or 
social. And the conflict to which thought is sensitive 
need not be practical in the bread and butter sense. It 
may be theoretical or esthetic or religious. It is because 
mind is form and.loves form that conflict or discord spurs 
it on to new creative organization. Conflict, in a being 
with mental organization, may stimulate thought, but it 
cannot account for the genesis or nature of thought. 
Dewey’s genesis of the categories looks like a veiled 
Hegelianism. As in Hegel’s logic, it is the development 
of new categories by magic from the conflict of lower cate- 
gories. Hegel has the advantage of having the categories 
manipulated by the supreme magician, the absolute, 
Hegel’s modest name for his own insight into cosmic rela- 
tions; and the absolute, with nothing apparently in his 
hands but the two sticks of abstract categories, manages 
to make a rose bush appear and bloom through resources 
of his own that are not obvious to the uncritical spectator. 
Dewey has renounced the absolute and apparently is try- 
ing to make the sticks actually generate the rose-bush by 
their own friction. What he does in fact is precisely what 
Hegel did, viz., unconsciously to play the rdle of the 
absolute and to dupe himself and his followers into think- 
ing that they are empiricists. The ghost of the past walks 
in the shadow of the forgotten years and, even though 
unseen, may control the present. Dewey retains subcon- 
sciously the Hegelian faith in the dialectical unity of 
experience and this gives him assurance that the loose ends 
of conflict will be brought together in a harmonious whole. 
It is this which makes him certain that “the end-in-view 
of desire is that object which were it present would link 
into an organized whole activities which are now partial 
and competing.” ‘This gives him “a sense of the infinite 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS = 227 


reach of an act physically occurring in a small point of 
space and occupying a petty instant of time.’ Thus are 
“we sustained and expanded in feebleness and failure by 
the sense of an enveloping whole.” * This whole is supplied 
neither by conflicting habits nor is it “inspired by impulse.” 
Every noble soul is a latent idealist, whatever may be the 
surface play of ideas; and sooner or later (usually later) 
the unconscious idealism will break through, even though 
restrained and overlaid by empirical method. The warm 
and noble idealism of William James is not the product of 
his “radical empiricism” but the unconscious reminiscence, 
transformed in an intensely personal experience, of the 
Transcendentalism which he absorbed in his youth and 
which, in later life, came to his consciousness as the 
“higher part” within, which is ‘“‘conterminous and continu- 
ous with a more of the same quality which is operative 
in the universe outside of him, and which he can keep in 
working touch with, and in a fashion get on board of, and 
save himself when all his lower being has gone to pieces in 
the wreck.” * 

Instrumentalism fails as signally to account for the 
genesis of structure in the evolution of the race as in the 
evolution of the individual. Conflict does not account for 
the genesis of structure in racial any more than in indi- 
vidual evolution. Nature does not produce sense organs 
or a nervous system or a mind because these are advanta- 
geous in the struggle for existence, but because these are 
adaptations to the structure of nature, and, attuned to 
its order, they prove advantageous in the struggle for 
existence. Intelligence does not emerge in evolution 
because it is useful; but because intelligence is adapted 
to the order of nature, it furnishes a more successful way 
of meeting practical situations than that of neural habit. 
The selective and constructive activity of mind is not 
accidental, but a part of the cosmos—prompted by the 
cosmos and therefore germane to the cosmos. ‘This is 


"Human Nature and Conduct, 1922, pp. 238-264. 
° The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902, p. 508. 


228 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


equally true of the process of knowledge and of the process 
of beauty. Mind is not a stranger in the cosmos, but is 
itself part of the creative activity of nature. It is useful 
in so far as it imitates nature, deals with reality as it is. 
Its passion for truth and beauty is a reflex of nature. 

When creative mind has emerged in the evolutionary 
process, it gives rise to a new rank of satisfactions from 
that of the organic level. At first, it is true, mind is largely 
enslaved to biological needs and in many people remains 
so, but in some at least, mind liberates itself to commune 
with mind, to create in beauty and to enjoy beauty—no 
longer a slave of animal appetities, but their master, using 
the organism and its appetites to realize the life of mind. 
We must recognize quality and not merely quantity in the 
realization of life. Thought means the creative organiza- 
tion of impulses. It is a new level of adaptation to the 
universe, that of creative understanding, reconstruction, 
and appreciation. It presses toward a new purposive, self- 
directive whole of life, however stumbling and inadequate 
this creative striving may yet be. The formative impulse 
in us does not, or should not try to, impose form arbitrarily 
upon the universe; but because of the formative impulse 
in us we learn in a long trial and error process of thought 
to participate in the form of the universe and thus become 
true creators in a world of flux. 

The structure of the minded organism is revealed in its 
integral functioning within its various milieux, physical 
and social. The qualitative hierarchy of functions must 
be accounted for in terms of a qualitative hierarchy of 
structure. It is because of the dynamic structure of the 
minded organism that experience takes on the cumulative 
temporal pattern of memory and the forward-looking 
pattern of imagination. Such responses cannot be pro- 
duced in the lower animals by anv amount of training, 
because they lack the structural qualifications. The struc- 
ture of the minded organism shows itself in the projection 
of a temporal, spatial, and causal order into our perception 
of nature. That does not mean that this projection is 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS = 229 


wholly arbitrary. If mind throws its net of space, time, 
and causality over nature, it accommodates its meshes by 
a trial and error process to the meshes of nature. The 
determinateness of mental structure is due to the inter- 
action of the minded organism with its environment, phys- 
ical and social. But there must be the dynamic possibility 
for such integration in the life stream of heredity. Be- 
cause the mind has structure we can discover laws of 
thought by becoming conscious of the implications of its 
procedure. The structure of mind is revealed in the crea- 
tion and appreciation of beauty. It is because the mind 
has structure that it seeks for unity and harmony in the 
world of its activity—the world of knowledge, the world 
of action and the world of appreciation. It is true that we 
may not be conscious of the implications of this structure. 
We may proceed by a sort of intuition in our creative 
activity and be guided by a feeling of fitness. Man 
created, long before he stopped to analyze the principles 
implied. Even now we know little about the laws of 
creativeness. But all the while there is a structure which 
predisposes to a certain activity and guides this activity 
in its trial and error procedure. Else creative activity 
would be mere chance and its products would be inca- 
pable of intellectual analysis. But though we cannot lay 
down the path of creativeness, we can at least see order 
and discover principles after the event. Mund is order 
and therefore it can perceive, understand, and appreciate 
order. This is the immortal contribution of Kant, even 
though his analysis is faulty and though his lack of evo- 
lutionary sense led him to conceive this ordering activity 
as subjective and arbitrary. 

No fixed rules can be laid down for creative intelligence. 
If we could reduce it to rules, we could thenceforth dis- 
pense with it, as Francis Bacon thought. The attempts 
to reduce thought to some one type of procedure are arti- 
ficial and barren so far as real discovery is concerned. 
Dewey proposes the following analysis of “a complete act 
of thought,” viz., (1) a felt difficulty; (2) its location and 


230 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


definition; (8) suggestion of possible solutions; (4) devel- 
opment by reasoning of the bearings of the suggestion; (5) 
further observation and experiment leading to its accep- 
tance or rejection.” ° But Dewey’s scheme is as far from 
an account of the process of discovery in a creative mind 
as is Aristotle’s syllogism, though in justice to Aristotle 
and the logicians of our own day, it ought to be added 
that they do not pretend to give an account of the psycho- 
logical process of thought but merely of the formal impli- 
cations of propositions. Such schemes are a posteriori 
abstractions at best; and while they may have value in 
clarifying the mind of the spectator and in arranging the 
products of thought, they do not furnish the rationale of 
the creative process. The real dialectic of creative thought 
cannot be separated into abstract moments without losing 
its living unity. The real understanding of the life of 
thought can only come by empathy, 7.e., living oneself into 
the creative process. The post mortem diagnosis of 
thought in formal analysis has, however, a negative value. 
If it is sterile to produce, it can point out errors. By show- 
ing us the weaknesses, formal and material, to which we 
are prone, it may make us more cautious in our procedure 
and thus save us from blind alleys. 

Because of our besetting sin of formalism, we are wont 
to distinguish too sharply between the activity of creative 
intelligence in science and its operation in other fields, 
such as art. The difference lies not in the creative process 
but in the limitations which the activity recognizes. The 
great scientist 1s a poet who restrains his imagination by 
scientific method; and great art is thought enhanced by 
emotion and freed from all limitations except the appre- 
ciation by creative human nature. The only universal 
factor in creative reason is the feeling for form or coher- 
ence. The process may start with what the spectator 
regards as deduction, the implications from previous 
thought; and in organized activity must do so to a greater 
or less extent, depending upon the degree of previous 

* John Dewey, How We Think, p. 72. 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 231 | 


organization. We must bear in mind that the search 
for meaning, whether in science, art or social movements, 
is an activity with cumulative duration which not only 
exercises pressure over subsequent moments of an individ- 
ual history but gains momentum from generation to gen- 
eration. We are swept on by its logic—often more emo- 
tional than intellectual and largely unconscious to our- 
selves—in the creation of a philosophical system or a sym- 
phony or a social unity. What comes to us as a flash of 
original insight, now and then, has been long preparing, 
and, to the external critic who looks at creative intelligence 
in retrospect, may seem to follow inevitably from the 
implications of previous thinking. There is a nisus that 
operates in the progress of thought, selecting and rejecting 
among the alternatives which suggest themselves according 
to the integral drift of our meaningful experience. The 
deepest root of creative thought is the esthetic feeling for 
harmony, bringing into unity vast masses of facts or 
hitherto unrelated beliefs. This feeling may come to us 
in rare moments as a mystical intimation of the nisus of 
events not yet understood. Both the inspiration and the 
procedure lie largely in the subconscious. The first penum- 
bral insight 1s made definite in the social and physical 
process of expressing the meaning whether in a scientific 
experiment or a work of art or a social movement. The 
final test of thought is the creative rapport of the mean- 
ing with the selected object and in the last analysis with 
the cosmos. The test cannot be stated as utility though 
thought may prove useful, nor can such temporal qualifi- 
cations, as “in the long run,” enter into the test, though 
the test must have reference to the temporal character of 
the object which is intended. The test, moreover, must 
satisfy our whole creative nature—emotional and voli- 
tional, as well as intellectual. A theory which runs 
counter to our emotional and volitional nature, even if it 
should command a certain intellectual acquiescence or 
silence for the time being, is sure to prove barren of results. 
If it cannot be refuted, it will be ignored—or suppressed. 


232 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


The Interrelation of Functions 


We must understand mind as a unique energy system 
working through the physiological organism and contribut- 
ing its pattern to its continuities with the environment. 
And the pattern it contributes is a pattern of meaning, of 
teleological control, not a mere mechanical pattern of the 
external relation of parts. This pattern control is an 
integral control and the various mental functions must be 
understood with reference to this integral control. We 
can, of course, distinguish aspects within this integral ac- 
tivity. But we must not make the mistake of traditional 
psychology, viz., of abstracting these aspects from the 
whole in which they figure and erect them into so many 
independent faculties or capacities. This is a trick that 
language plays upon us. We make a distinction and give 
it a name and forthwith it becomes an entity. In the psy- 
chology of to-day, mind is but a collective name for various 
classes of processes; and the name itself can just as well 
be dispensed with since it throws no light upon the proc- 
esses. We speak of perception, memory, recognition, 
judgement, conception, volition, etc. But these are not 
really so many compartments, they are names for func- 
tions. These functions cannot be understood in isolation: 
they are but aspects, and closely interwoven aspects, in 
the integral adaptation of a minded organism to its 
environment. 

In a complete meaningful reaction to the environment 
there is the selective taking account of the environment by 
the minded organism. But this taking account involves 
the duration or past history of the organism. In other 
words, the minded organism brings its memory organiza- 
tion into play. Taking account of the environment through 
the memory organization, is recognition. Such functioning 
is a significant, forward-looking adaptation. It is there- 
fore a judgement. It is, furthermore, a purposive discrim- 
inative functioning, 7.e., it is a taking account of a relevant 
aspect, not the “shooting at a bear generally.” It is there- 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS — 233 


fore a conceiving of the situation. It relates this particular 
situation to other remembered and observed situations on 
the basis of the conceived aspect: this is inference. The 
affective organization of the minded organism is brought 
into play in connection with the situation: this is emotion 
or sentiment according to its degree of organization. The 
situation calls for selective action on the basis of its mean- 
ing: this is volition. But perceiving, remembering, recog- 
nizing, conceiving, judging, inferring, feeling, willing are 
but aspects of a complete interaction of a minded organism 
with its environment. They are not temporal events in 
the developing of the action. We don’t perceive and then 
remember, recognize, ete. But we perceive the situation 
as remembered, recognized, conceived, judged, related to 
other situations, as satisfying a need and calling for action. 
One aspect develops in clearness with the others. We per- 
ceive more definitely as we conceive more definitely, etc.; 
and the meaning of the situation gets a reality and clear- 
ness through action that it could not otherwise have. 
That does not mean that action is the last term in a 
series, but, on the contrary, we perceive, conceive, etc., 
more clearly because the action is preparing, because we 
manipulate, experiment, etc. We cannot say that all the 
other factors exist for action. There has been a tendency 
of late to overemphasize the executive aspect. That is 
conceiving action too externally. It is not just action 
that we desire, but intelligent, harmonious, completely 
satisfying action. All the factors are integrated as aspects 
in the adaptation of a minded organism to its environment. 
They are separated from the whole only by linguistic 
abstraction. The whole transaction is a minded response 
as contrasted with a reflex or habitual response. When I 
say that the above aspects—perceiving, remembering, con- 
ceiving, etc.—are integral characters and not temporal 
events, I do not mean that we are aware of them all equally 
at the same time. There may be an indefinite period of 
preparation for the selected situation. In this case, we 
are conscious of remembering and conceiving before we 


234 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


are conscious of actual perceiving and recognizing. The 
affective factor in such a case sinks to a minimum. There 
is, however, incipient sensory and affective adjustment 
even in such a case. In the case of a surprise, on the other 
hand, the perceptual and emotional factors stand out for 
the time being. But in an actual minded reaction the 
factors must be considered as merely aspects of a whole- 
reaction; and it is not complete action of a minded organ- 
ism unless all the aspects are present. 

We must bear in mind, however, that, even in the case 
of a minded organism, there is a tendeney to economy, 
to relegate to lower automatic levels what no longer 
requires significant attention in order to gain energy for 
the pressing situations. There is also a tendency, alas! to 
lapse, in our custom society, into the level of routine and 
to economize thinking altogether. But we should not in 
that case flatter ourselves that our conduct is minded 
conduct, conduct with soul. And we should also bear in 
mind the danger that the more we allow our conduct to 
lapse into the automatic, the more the highest level in 
our organization atrophies until perhaps we become inca- 
pable of minded response. 

I have tried to emphasize the interrelation of aspects in 
the functioning of the minded organism. We have seen 
that we must understand minded functioning as integral 
functioning. I must also call attention again to the fact 
that minded functioning implies the integral control of 
the entire organism with its physiological mechanisms. 
This has been made clear enough in connection with such 
aspects of minded functioning as the perceptual, affective, 
and executive aspects. The perceptual aspect involves, of 
course, the control of the afferent channels of the nervous 
system, including the sense organs; the affective aspect 
involves the connection of the central system with the 
vascular and sympathetic systems and their afferent contri- 
bution; the executive aspect involves the control of the 
motor centres with the motor tracts and muscles. While 
this has been recognized, it has seemed as though such 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS — 235 


aspects of the minded reaction as memory, imagination, 
and thought, if not detached from the bodily organization 
as Bergson would have it—wedged in as in a vise in the 
bodily structure, and only allowed to get through by a 
thin edge for executive purposes—at least have to do 
only with the cerebral tracts, if they are not identical 
with the functioning of certain cerebral tracts. 

We have seen that minded control is something over 
and above neural organization and habit. But we have 
also seen that it overlaps as cerebral control overlaps the 
levels below it. This is as true of memory and imagina- 
tion, including abstract imagination or thought, as of 
perception, emotion and volition. Psychology has never © 
been able to rid itself of the notion that the events of 
experience are stored somehow as contents in connection 
with the brain, whether as neural habits or as memory 
ideas, to be drawn on somehow in remembering or imagin- 
ing. I have above insisted that duration must be stated in 
terms of structure. Psychological duration must be stated 
in terms of the mental structure of a minded organism, but 
not as isolated from the organic levels. Mnemic causa- 
tion, then, must be understood, not as distance action of 
past events (which is unintelligible) but as a cumulative 
modification of a structure or set which when function- 
ing in integral relation with the organism, including the 
sensory centrifugal tracts of the nervous system and their 
relation to the sense organs, makes it possible to live over 
in a new setting the past events. 

I should not say with Bertrand Russell that “past oecur- 
rences, in addition to the present stimuli and the present 
ascertainable condition of the organism enter into the 
causation of response,” *® but that the cumulative modifi- 
cation of structure through its integral control of the 
organism with its sense organs makes it possible to re-live 
past occurrences in such patterns as the present control 
calls for, whether controlled memory for a present adjust- 
ment, such as the recall of a name, or controlled imagina- 

1° The Analysis of Mind, p. 78. 


236 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


tion for the creation of a new pattern for action, under- 
standing or enjoyment. The process of resurrecting past 
events may be compared to the action of the phonograph 
record in giving us back past events. No one believes that 
the song as a series of past events exists in the phonograph 
record and exercises causality in the present; but in the 
plate endures a modification of energy structure of such a 
kind that when a certain integral dynamic situation is 
furnished the events are repeated. Of course the analogy 
is halting, for mind structure is not a mere mechanical 
structure. It is a growing structure with a cumulative 
organization of modifications; and therefore mind at vari- 
ous moments exercises a new control. But the living over 
of the past is conditioned upon an integral relation of 
mind with the organism, including the centrifugal sen- 
sory system. Imagery is not stored away, but results from 
the pattern activity of the sensory centres in the cortex, 
which in turn send out centrifugal currents to the sensory 
end-organs. With such stimulation there are certain 
characteristic motor adjustments. There is also the stimu- 
lation of the centrifugal affective system which inhibits 
or furthers the process of recall, as we all know. Fluent 
mental functioning in recall and imagination depends upon 
the fluent functioning of the entire organism under the 
control of the mental set at the time. 

If we must know mind in its functioning through the 
body mechanisms in relation to its environment, then the 
distinction between physiological and mental reactions is 
necessarily pragmatic and relative. We cannot say off- 
hand that automatisms are peculiarly physiological since 
there are mental automatisms. Nor can we say that habit 
and association are the contribution solely of the physiolog- 
ical mechanisms, since both habit and association may be 
the result of purposive action. We have seen that mind 
contributes a meaning pattern to behaviour and this must 
be a characteristic which mere organic functioning lacks. 
But when we try to distinguish the contribution of the 
lower levels from that of the higher, the task is more diffi- 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 237 


cult than it seems at first. In a normal human being, 
physiological functioning is already integrated into mental 
control. We have seen that the functioning of the sub- 
cortical centres is not the same when they function under 
the control of the cerebrum as when they function in 
detachment from the cerebrum. This is equally true of 
all submental levels, including the cerebral in their inte- 
gration with the mental levels. Therefore, in order to 
get a pure contrast between minded functioning and physi- 
ological functioning, we must compare minded organ- 
isms with organisms that are complete without the mental 
level. Thus psychologists have studied instincts and emo- 
tions in animals in order to throw light upon such processes 
in man. But this is unsatisfactory, since physiological 
functioning in an organism which is complete without 
mind cannot be said to be the same as physiological func- 
tioning in an organism which is complete with mind. The 
difference in the two types is not merely the presence of 
significant functioning in one and its absence in the other, 
but there is also a difference in physiological structure. 
We cannot, therefore, argue with certainty from one type 
of organism to the other. We cannot say that because 
the sex instinct is a physiological pattern in certain ani- 
mals it must therefore be a physiological pattern in man. 

The difficulty is increased by our using the same names 
for mechanisms and functions at different levels. We 
speak of reflexes, instincts, habit, memory mechanisms, 
language mechanisms as though they were the same, irre- 
spective of the evolutionary history of the organism and 
the integral control. But the genetic significance of such 
mechanisms is different when we view them as steps in 
the evolution of a new whole, such as mind control, or view 
them not as steps but as wholes. Let us illustrate by 
instinct. The reproductive instinct has a different genetic 
significance when it is a complete adaptation, as in some 
of the insects, from what it has when it is an incomplete 
structural adaptation to be eked out as regards its man- 
ner of adaptation through social experience as in man. 


238 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


We are dealing with a different physiological organization 
in the two cases. A habit has a different genetic signifi- 
cance when it is a trial and error result of organic adapta- 
tion under the control of some primary impulse, from what 
it has when it is a lapse from a higher level of functioning 
which has become automatic. And if the genetic signifi- 
cance is different between mechanisms which function as 
whole-responses of the organism and those which are steps 
in a more advanced whole-adaptation, so is the quality 
different. The reproductive instinct in a developed human 
being does not have the same quality as that of the insect. 
A human being who yields unrestrainedly to the reproduc- 
tive instinct does not revert to a state of animal inno- 
cence, but is an Immoral being. 

The difficulty with psychology in the past is that it has 
treated such functions as reflex, instinct, habit, perception, 
memory, emotion, as though they always existed on one 
plane. It has assumed that they have an invariable qual- 
ity. It has ignored the fact that every one of these func- 
tions exists at different levels and differs in quality with 
different structures and their interaction with the environ: 
ment. Bergson treats memory and recognition as distinc- 
tive of mind in contrast with matter. But memory and 
recognition exist at many levels. An organism without a 
mental level may possess organic memory and recognition, 
2.€., without the capacity of living over the past as a mem- 
ory image, it accomplishes a trial and error adaptation by 
means of organic habit. It learns to avoid certain stimuli 
and to seek others in its environment. But further than 
that, an animal on the organic plane may be capable of 
adherent memory, 7.e., it may possess the structural adap- 
tation for recalling an event as an image, but the recall is 
adherent to some particular organic impulse in connection 
with some perceived situation. The presence of a certain 
object may suggest a memory picture of past experience 
with its pleasure-pain relation to the organism. But there 
may be no connection between events in memory. The 
association of ideas presupposes a mental structure, 1.e., 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS — 239 


implications of meaning between events. Recognition 
on the plane of organic memory or adherent memory is not 
controlled by a meaning pattern, and hence is not mental. 
Language mechanisms may figure on the organic plane as 
emotional calls giving rise to instinctive responses, but on 
this level there is nothing mental about them. It is only 
when language mechanisms are controlled by the intention 
to express meanings that they become mental. Life on the 
organic level includes various elementary impulses, some 
of them with very complex structural mechanisms for 
their fulfilment, but these impulses are not guided by 
meaning patterns. They are guided by organic patterns. 
In the evolution towards the whole-reaction of mind, 
organic mechanisms—reflexes, instincts, emotions, habits, 
language mechanisms—are included, but in being taken 
up into the new type of adaptation they come to have a 
new quality. Sometimes in pathological cases we have a 
reverting to a simpler level, as in the case, described by 
Huxley in his essay on “Animal Automatism,” of the vau- 
deville singer who had lost his memory but who when 
placed before the footlights and given a musical score 
would go through with the singing of the song as of old. 
But such reversal is, of course, far from a return to the 
animal automatism of a plane without memory, since the 
neural centres retained a certain education from a higher 
plane. 

It is not easy to draw the line in animal evolution where 
mind begins. For one thing, we are greatly handicapped in 
arriving at the inner life of animals; and to-day, with the 
materialistic bias of psychology, we are apt to discredit 
them too much. We must remember, too, that mind exists 
at various qualitative levels and manifests itself in many 
types. We shall not go into the analysis of the duration 
levels which overlap and complicate each other in various 
ways as shown by the new science of psychoanalysis. This 
science has already shown us that mind is a temporal struc- 
ture of great complexity, and that confusions, obsessions, 
and inhibitions in one stage of development may lead to 


240 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


serious complications in later stages and produce serious 
organic as well as mental disturbances. Here we must 
limit ourselves to the observation that meaningful reac- 
tion has various levels and types. Meaning on the plane 
of revery and dreaming lacks generally a definite con- 
trolling pattern or purpose. The course of events may be 
determined by organic causes such as mood. Some ani- 
mals, the dog, for example, seem to dream and to have 
meaning in this passive sense. We may regard this passive 
type of meaning as a transition stage in evolution, though 
in man it may also be a lapse of control from a higher 
level, as in sleep and fatigue. What we mean by mind in 
actuality, as Aristotle would say, or the complete mind 
adaptation, is creative intelligence or the control of the 
organism by a meaning pattern, instead of the organic con- 
dition controlling the flow of events. But here too we 
have different types of activity within the same individual 
at different times and as between different individuals. 
We must recognize different qualities of mind. The crea- 
tive adaptation to understand our world, to enjoy its 
beauty and to invent patterns of action is relative to the 
history and quality of the individual and his relation to 
his environment. At best we are onesided and must sup- 
plement one another in the life of society. And we may 
well believe that our stage of mental development is but 
a step in the process of spiritual adaptation to the cosmos. 
There is a vast difference now in the quality of minds, and 
we may well believe that future creative evolution will 
mean still higher levels. 


The Birth of a Soul 


Our survey, so far, should make it clear that it is futile 
to try to reduce mind to material categories. The unity, 
duration, and forward-looking co-ordination implied in the 
simplest type of minded behaviour are not resolvable into 
the external relations of a mechanical system. Mind must 
be recognized as a new type of adaptation, a striving after 
a new equilibrium with the cosmos. If we speak in terms 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 241 


of levels of organization, then we must recognize mind as 
a new level of organization, not a function of physiolog- 
ical organization but a new control with a new quality 
added to physiological functioning. What we know in 
our experience as the activity of judging, of recognition 
and memory, of comparison and abstraction, of creative 
imagination and volitional selection, is a different type of 
fact from what we know as electrons, atoms, and mole- 
cules in mechanical relations, even though the former 
occur in connection with a certain organization of the 
latter. To understand human life, at any rate, we must 
recognize a determination which is spiritual, an internal 
bond, the unity of experience. Mental activity must be 
recognized as real where and when it exists. We know 
it as a unique way of functioning, but it is not a universal 
form of functioning in the finite relations which we can 
observe. It is not characteristic of all types of organiza- 
tion. It requires a certain ensemble of conditions and a 
certain characteristic milieu for its actuality. If we speak 
in terms of space-time as is the fashion now, then we 
must recognize mind as a unique field of control, guiding 
events in their space and time relations—curving them 
into its own structure. In this field the temporal dimen- 
sion comes to have special importance, implying as it 
does the cumulative duration of the past in the way of 
memory—individual memory and social tradition—and 
the forward-looking control of the future through the 
reconstruction of the enduring past to meet new needs. 
We have seen that the creative advance of evolution 
must be understood in terms of organization—the super- 
imposing of new energy patterns upon the more primitive 
type of organization, as a result of cosmic interaction. The 
earlier energy systems with their lines of motion are not 
abrogated, but made to converge in a new direction. Thus 
organic patterns are superimposed upon inorganic patterns 
with unique results. Thus mind patterns are superim- 
posed upon organic patterns in the creative advance of 
nature. We are not aided much by regarding the soul as 


242 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


an element—some indivisible spiritual entity or perhaps, 
as has been suggested recently, some type of wave impulse. 
We know now a large range of radiant waves, from gamma 
rays, at one end, to waves used in wireless communication, 
at the other. But the conception of the soul as an element 
would still leave organization to be accounted for. We 
have seen what enormous complexity this organization 
implies, involving as it does not only the relation of mind 
to the vast ensemble of physiological mechanisms, but also 
its relation to the external environment with its physical 
and social milieux. The evolutionary process which makes 
mind possible cannot be regarded as merely weather, an 
accidental sea drift of elements, with a mind element 
externally added. We must understand the appearance of 
mind in relation to the evolutionary process, the creative 
advance of nature, which prepares the conditions for 
mind. I am not interested in mind as an emasculated 
ghost. Materialistic physiology found rightly that it 
could dispense with such a mind. I am interested in mind 
in the concrete—an energy system which adds a higher 
level of control to the life of organic nature. 

How shall we conceive the origin of such a mind? When 
is a soul born in the evolutionary process? When I speak 
of a human being as having a soul I mean the same thing 
as when I say that a statue or painting or symphony has a 
soul. I mean that matter is suffused and controlled by 
spirit. I mean that the human organism is alive with 
meaning and purpose, that it is controlled by a higher 
level than that found in the physiological organism. The 
physiological organism itself with its complicated mech- 
anisms must now be understood with reference to a new 
organizing pattern. The minded organism, not the mere 
physiological organism, becomes the whole-pattern of evo- 
lution. A soul is born when there is an awakening to the 
meaning of things. In the course of the evolution of life, 
there is added, in the fulness of time, a new level to the 
evolutionary process. This holds equally from the point 
of view of racial evolution and of individual evolution. 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS = 243 


The soul emerges in the evolutionary process, but it does 
not emerge by chance. Hz nthilo nihil fit holds of new 
types of organization as much as it holds of new elements. 
And soul is a new type of organization. It cannot he 
predicated of the elements—electrons, atoms, molecules, 
cells—which go to constitute the human organism. It 
must be conceived as energy, but to say that it is energy 
does not explain it. It is a new type of energy pattern. 
It is a new type of organization, not an abstract entity 
artificially added. It presupposes a certain prospective 
preparation, a previous organization of matter and proto- 
plasm, before it can emerge, but the categories of matter 
and the categories of organic evolution do not account for 
it. It is not statable in terms of preceding types of organi- 
zation in the evolutionary series. 

This is equally true whether it be the arising of the 
first soul in racial evolution or the arising of a new soul 
in individual evolution. The mystery is the same whether 
we fasten our attention on phylogenetic or ontogenetic 
evolution. The first arising of soul in geological evolution 
cannot be understood in terms of the antecedents in the 
phylogenetic series. Neither can the arising of the indi- 
vidual soul be explained in terms of the antecedents in 
the ontogenetic series. The sperm cells and ova do not 
have soul, nor has the resulting germ plasm. The parents 
cannot contribute soul to the new life series. The new 
soul is not the soul of the mother or the father: it is a 
unique soul. It is not the fusion of the two souls of the 
parents. It is one integral pattern. We are not just the chil- 
dren of our parents and more remote ancestors, though 
they are factors in the creative situation. They condi- 
tion to a certain extent the type of creative result through 
the body traits that they contribute. But these traits do 
not account for the origin of our life history, much less for 
our mind history. There must be creative synthesis, the 
contribution by the genius of the larger whole which fur- 
nishes the guiding field of the events of any one evolution- 
ary history. This larger whole must co-operate creatively, 


244 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


not merely in the stages of geological evolution, but in the 
evolution of each individual life. The ancients were right 
that the stars preside at the origin of every human being. 
The whole cosmic field exerts influence in the origin of a 
new life history. Cosmic genius must somehow contribute 
the appropriate pattern in the evolutionary advance of 
nature. We have conceived genesis in too particularistic 
and materialistic a fashion. The unseen factors are more 
important than the seen in the conception of a new 
individual. 

The emergence of the soul presupposes a creative con- 
tribution from the cosmos to the life stream with its 
heredity. But how shall we conceive this contribution? 
Do souls pre-exist as individual psyches, waiting to be 
united with a body? This does not seem plausible. For, 
in the first place, there is no evidence of the pre-existence 
of souls. And in the second place, we cannot conceive a 
soul as artificially added to the evolutionary process. It 
cannot be indifferent to the history to which it is added. 
Rather it emerges as a creative step in this history. But 
neither can we suppose that the creative synthesis which 
gives rise to this new type of organization and functioning 
is an accident. There must be a sufficient reason. This 
reason cannot be expressed in terms of function. The soul 
does not appear because it is useful. A structure is not 
useful before it has appeared. We must conceive the 
appearance of the soul as cosmic adaptation. As the struc- 
ture for seeing light appears as a result of a long trial 
and error process to respond to light, so soul appears as 
the result of a long trial and error process to respond to 
soul, to commune with soul. In each case the creative 
impulse comes from the larger cosmos. The new forma- 
tive pattern must interpenetrate from without to set the 
trial and error process going and to furnish a guiding field 
until at length rapport is established. 

This does not mean that cosmic genius has a storehouse 
of an indefinite number of patterns from which it draws. 
This is degrading cosmic genius too much. Rather must we 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 245 


conceive that cosmic genius creates as the artist creates. 
The artist creates the variety of unique patterns in the 
process of creating the poems or symphonies, and is guided 
by the material processes with which he deals and which 
he controls through his creativeness. In other words, he 
contributes a soul appropriate to his material. He does 
not get his creative ideas from a book. Yet through it all 
there are laws of creativeness which can be analyzed and 
understood even by those who do not have the genius to 
create. ‘The illustration from artis more than an analogy, 
for art is a creative adaptation of soul to the structure of 
the cosmos, and art consists in giving soul to material 
energies. Art is a type of mind organization. If the form 
of cosmic activity which we know as human art does not 
require the pre-existence of the particular patterns, but 
rather consists in creating new pattern-controls according 
to general cosmic laws, how absurd to suppose that the 
creativeness of cosmic genius is limited by pre-existent 
patterns. 

We are now in a position to see the true meaning of the 
concepts of potentiality and actuality as applied to the 
evolution of the individual soul. The birth of a soul does 
not merely imply a creative synthesis once and for all. 
The soul is not a mere abstract capacity, persisting 
unchanged, though it is true that there is a difference in 
quality as between individual souls, and there is the per- 
sistence of a unique pattern in each individual history. 
The birth of a soul in the individual, as in the race, is the 
outcome of a process of creative interaction, of wechselwir- 
kung, of interstimulation, and exchange. To develop a 
soul requires continuous exchange with soul in the cosmos. 
It is a trial and error process of adaptation. Heaven lies 
about us, not only in our infancy but throughout the life 
process, stimulating toward soul before the structure of 
soul exists, in due time contributing the appropriate soul 
pattern, and stimulating soul to creative activity after it 
exists. This we are apt to ignore because the action of 
the cosmic environment is constant, but it is, in the last 


246 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


analysis, the rationale of the evolution of soul. In a more 
specific sense, soul requires the interstimulation of soul in 
human society. It requires human intercourse with its 
language and tradition to articulate its meaning. For 
soul is evolved for a milieu of soul; and only in this milieu 
can it reach actuality, in the sense of self-conscious pur- 
pose. As Undine, the nature sprite, received a soul through 
marriage with a being with soul, so the human individual 
receives soul through the marriage with soul, through crea- 
tive communion with soul, which is the essence of love. 
Thus is soul incarnated into the evolutionary process 
through the living breath of soul. 

While there can be no doubt that the quality of heredity 
conditions the capacity for soul, yet neither the intensity 
nor the quality of soul is absolutely determined by pre- 
existent structure, but depends in part upon stimulus and 
incentive within the life time of the individual. Soul is 
not an abstraction, not an absolute entity, but an energy 
field. Soul is the result of creative interaction, and we 
cannot understand the birth of soul unless we take account 
of environment as well as heredity. We cannot make a 
genius out of the heritage of an idiot, but neither must we 
neglect the cosmic and social milieu. It is possible that 
prenatal influences are already potent in shaping the bent 
of an individual—that the emotional life of the mother, 
especially in its intenser moments, is a predetermining fac- 
tor. We know that the external social environment exer- 
cises a powerful control in the development of a human 
being. It 1s not an accident that geniuses come in clusters, 
that some periods have been phenomenally productive 
while others have been stagnant. Social conflicts and social 
encouragement, the inspiration of great personalities and 
the struggle for great causes, in short, the tension and 
quality of the social field within which the individual is 
born to consciousness and lives his life, condition not only 
the awakening to soul, but the amount and quality of the 
production. Great crises make heroes. Great epochs of 
civilization increase the actual genius of a people. The 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 247 


crisis cannot make a hero out of everybody, but furnishes 
nevertheless the creative situation in which the quality of 
heroism is tempered and born; and it is impossible to say 
how much of heroism is discipline and how much is endow- 
ment. The incentive furnished by such a milieu as the age 
of Pericles or the Elizabethan age must be taken account 
of as a factor in the creation of actual genius. It is not 
to be assumed that the biological characteristics of a 
people change suddenly. But while the biological quality 
of an individual is important, so is also the character of 
the social milieu in which he gets his incentive and disci- 
pline, not to speak of the more subtle cosmic rhythms of 
which the individual and society are part. 

The emergence of soul in the sense of significant pur- 
posive expression must be regarded as a whole-adaptation, 
as seeing must be regarded as a whole-adaptation. Just 
as the various stages in the creative evolution of sight 
cannot function as the actuality of seeing, even though 
in a constructive, forward-looking sense they may be said 
to be potential of seeing, so the various stages in the evolu- 
tion of the creative adaptation which we call soul can 
only be called potential soul in a constructive, forward- 
looking sense. Only in this constructive sense can we 
attribute soul to the embryo or even to the infant. The 
actuality of soul is no more present on a smaller scale in 
the early stages than there is a homunculus present in the 
germ plasm. Soul in the sense of significant functioning 
is rather the outcome of the creative adaptation to soul— 
cosmic soul and human society—-and this outcome may 
not be reached by the human individual in his earthly 
career. | 

We must then regard mind—thought, constructive 
imagination, purposive expression—as a creative adapta- 
tion to the universe. The response to the logical charac- 
ter, the esthetic character, in short, to the spiritual char- 
acter of the universe is, like the response to light, due to a 
long constructive adjustment on the part of the stream of 
life to the energy structure of the cosmos. To respond 


248 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


to the significant form of the universe, to its higher type 
of creative synthesis, life requires a certain type of struc- 
tural adaptation, as it requires a certain type of struc- 
tural adaptation to see colour. And as in the case of sen- 
sory adaptation, so in the case of mind, the impetus to 
creative adaptation must come from the character of the 
cosmos. In the case of minding as in the case of seeing, 
the new type of response comes only when the structural 
adaptation is complete; and then, when the proper milieu 
is present, the characteristic response is discontinuous with 
the functioning of the past. The new insight comes over 
us suddenly as love or a summer’s dream. But the crea- 
tive adaptation for mind is vastly more complex than 
that for sight or any other sensation. It presupposes the 
structural adaptation to sense stimuli. It presupposes, 
further, the structural adaptation for duration patterns, 
such as habit and memory—adaptations for conserving the 
past. It presupposes also the organization, cerebral and 
bodily, for expression—the vastly complicated language 
mechanisms. It presupposes, finally, the evolution of the 
proper milieu for their use with the social coadaptation 
involved. But it is the divine impetus to mind from the 
cosmos which sets the process of adaptation going, which 
exercises constant pressure for its continuance, and then 
at length when the adaptation is complete rewards it with 
a new rapport with the universe. 

I recognize that analogies borrowed from the physical 
and organic levels are halting when we try to express the 
creative adaptation of soul. Just because minded func- 
tioning is a unique type of functioning, it cannot be 
expressed in terms of any other type, least of all those of 
a lower type. To commune with light it is not necessary 
that we should be light. It is only necessary that we 
should have a physiological organization that can respond 
with proper organs to light. Since seeing, moreover, is a 
creative response of a higher level to a lower level of 
organization, we cannot attribute the experience of light 
and colour to physical light. Seeing is not a reaction in 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 249 


kind of physical light waves upon each other, but involves 
a new type of qualitative response on the part of the 
organism. As contrasted with our communion with phys- 
ical nature, the communion of mind is a communion in 
kind. We must be mind to commune with mind. Soul is 
primarily a response of soul to soul and only secondarily a 
response to stimuli of a lower order. It is in a milieu of 
soul that the creative adaptation of soul arises—the actu- 
ality of soul as meaningful functioning. We see this in 
the genesis of our significant life in society. It is only in 
the social milieu of mind that minded functioning in indi- 
vidual history arises. The life of reason, the life of being 
awake to the meaning and beauty of the world, can be 
born only in creative interaction with mind. Through 
social interstimulation there is the induction, the incarna- 
tion, through a trial and error process and through the 
pressure of societv, of the mental patterns of society into 
the life history of the individual, until the individual as 
a result of this process of adaptation comes to participate 
in the system of patterns of society—first automatically 
and later perhaps reflectively and creatively. It is only 
through interaction with mind that mind can arise in the 
srowth of the individual: and when the adaptation is 
established, it is a communion of mind with mind and a 
recognition of mind by mind—the mind within recog- 
nizing the mind without, through the necessitv of adapta- 
tion—the individual soul first mirroring the life of society, 
but in favoured instances also becoming creative of society, 
of a new nattern of the life of mind. 

While the social milieu of mind, with its cumulative tra- 
dition, with its conflicts and demands for co-operation, is 
the necessary matrix of individual development, it 
obviously is not self-sufficient. It, too, emerges in the 
process of geological evolution; and it rises to new levels, 
it takes on new patterns in the course of evolution. It 
must be understood with reference to the larger cosmic 
matrix to which itself is an adaptation and from which it 
gets its stimulus and vitality. Social advance is not 


250 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


accounted for merely by minds taking in one another’s 
washing. There must be a larger exchange of energy. 
And this exchange comes as an adaptation of the individ- 
ual to the cosmos. For the individual is the centre of 
exchange through which creativeness arises, though this 
creativeness radiates in social patterns. It is through 
adaptation to cosmic stimulus that the geological process 
becomes prepared for soul; and it is through cosmic induc- 
tion, the impetus from cosmic genius, and its incarnation 
into individual history, that soul is creatively superim- 
posed upon the levels which are its evolutionary condi- 
tion. It is through this cosmic induction that not only 
individual mind is created, but also the milieu of mind, 
intersubjective coadaptedness, without which individual 
mind could not develop. Through this cosmic stimulus 
higher and higher levels of mental adaptiveness and com- 
munion are induced, in the struggle and anguish of indi- 
vidual soul for larger rapport with cosmic genius. Thus 
arise not only superior levels of individual capacity but 
superior milieux, for the individual must find expression 
in the social milieu. And while the social milieu with its 
tradition gives individual genius its opportunity, it is in 
turn enriched by the creative expression of the individual. 
The whole process is the experimentation of cosmic genius 
to produce greater variety and greater harmony in terms of 
individual histories—contributing to each structure such 
colour and pattern as its history permits, even as the mun- 
dane artist works to realize new patterns in stone, paint, 
or marble. Certain it is that the stimulating genius in the 
evolutionary process cannot be less than mind, though it 
may be vastly higher than what we call mind—mind itself 
being one of the stages toward a more perfect adaptation, 
lying beyond our present conception of mind, as mind is 
higher than organic adaptation. 

It is clear that mind is not just an external relation of a 
life history with its environment. It is a through-and- 
through relation, a relation of creative participation. The 
individual pattern of mind is not impressed arbitrarily from 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 251 


without, but is creatively induced in the trial and error 
process of adaptation when the conditions for the induc- 
tion are complete. And the same holds for every new level 
of soul. The soul of the cosmic artist comes to pervade 
the individual structure with its presence. Just as medie- 
val painters of the marvellous stained windows in the 
Gothic cathedrals did not attain their effects by painting 
the glass externally, but built the glass, crystal by crystal, 
staining each bit in the precious fluid and thus staining 
their genius into the wonderful rose patterns, so the cosmic 
artist stains the material elements of our evolution with 
soul, his life blood, and builds them into appropriate pat- 
terns bit by bit, even as this composition is stained with 
the colour and pattern of my soul. Only in thoroughness, 
in pure devotion, through sustained meditation, infiltrates 
new soul, the life blood of divinity, into our individual 
history, producing the life of genuine philosophy which 
is also the life of genuine piety. 

Is the process of creating a soul now complete as the 
process of seeing colour is complete? We naturally think 
of the actuality of mind in terms of the achievement of 
our own mind. For us our insight is final. But we are 
brought face to face with relativity in the scrutiny of even 
human development. We have seen that human develop- 
ment, whether in the race or in the individual, is not of 
one level. What we call mind in the primitive stages of 
man is not mind of the same quality as what we call mind 
now. What we call mind in the child is not the same 
quality as what we call mind in the adult. And between 
different individuals at any one time there is a vast differ- 
ence in quality. The actuality attainable by an imbecile 
is not the same actuality as that of an individual whom we 
regard as normal. And the actuality of mediocrity is not 
the same quality as that of a Plato or Newton or Beetho- 
ven. We cannot ignore the difference in the quality of 
men. And what about the future? Is the actuality of 
our soul, even at its best, final? Should we not rather 
look forward in pious expectancy, as the ancient Hebrews 


252 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


looked forward to the coming of the Messiah, to a new and 
higher actuality, a more adequate adaptation to the struc- 
ture of the cosmos—its divine actuality—, a completer 
incarnation of the divine pattern in the life stream of our 
earth? And should we not use our resources, physical and 
spiritual, so as to prepare for this higher level, the new 
kingdom of heaven’ ‘To this end we must ensure the con- 
tinuance of the best biological stock and we must create 
greater freedom and incentive for the development of 
soul. In the birth of soul, the barren, those who devote 
themselves sacrificially to the increasing of the spiritual 
heritage, may have more children than those who biolog- 
ically beget children; but we must have the biological 
heritage too if the process of creative adaptation is to go 
on in preparation for more adequate rapport with cosmic 
genius. Nor must we expect that the Son of Man when 
He comes will be received by men in the future, any more 
than in the past. ‘The process of atonement, of attaining 
higher unity with the divine soul of things, must always 
be one of vicarious sacrifice. The path of progress leads 
over Golgotha. 


The Monad and The Whole 

One of the most pernicious bifurcations of reality has 
been that of the individual and the whole. In the history 
of philosophy the individual has either been regarded as 
adjectival to the whole or the latter has been disintegrated 
into independent monads. The adjectival theory finds its 
classical expression in Spinoza, the monadistic in Leibnitz. 
That neither type of theory has been consistent does more 
credit to the common sense than to the logic of the respec- 
tive advocates. Thus Spinoza tries to save the ethical 
significance of the individual, and Leibnitz, the logical 
unity of the world. The attempts at compromise between 
the two types of attitude have been indifferently success- 
ful because they have assumed at the outset the bifurcation 
they have attempted to bridge. If we start with an 
abstract universal, how are we going to derive individuals 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 253 


from it? If, again, we start with abstract individuals, 
how are we going to derive a universal from them? If 
with Aristotle we place the responsibility for individua- 
tion upon matter, we should show how matter can furnish 
the basis of differentiation. This Aristotle fails to do and 
in the end must recognize individual forms or entelechies. 
Aquinas, who postulates a finite creation, places the 
responsibility upon God for the creation of individual 
souls. Only so could he save individual significance and 
immortality, which Averroes, taking Artistotle literally, 
had endangered. For Averroes had reasoned quite logi- 
cally that if the universal mind is individuated only by 
bodies, then with the disappearance of the bodily organi- 
zation the individual mind must merge in the great reser- 
voir of mind. If matter, on the other hand, serves merely 
to split up the vital impulse into its inherent diversity, 
then unity disappears." And if we postulate an inclusive 
individual to guarantee the objectivity of the subjective 
perspectives of various monads, then the monads become 
adiectival.’* Spinoza triumphs over Leibnitz. 

The antinomy of the monad and the whole is solved by 
means of the theory of cosmic interaction and creative 
adaptation. There are individual centres with their unique 
individual history and structure. But these individual 
histories are curved into a cosmic field to which they 
strive, by a creative trial and error process, to adapt them- 
selves. This theory is able to give both mind and matter 
their due. We do not have to project reality on one plane, 
the psychological plane, as both psychological monism 
and psychological monadism have been obliged to do. Not 
all the parts of reality can be stated in subjective terms. 
We must recognize a qualitative hierarchy of organization 
and not merely differences in degree. But we have no 
right to deny subjective reality where it exists, as material- 
ism does. 

Both psychological monism and psychological monadism 


*1 Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution. 
1? H. Wildon Carr, A Theory of Monads, 1922, pp. 115-117. 


254 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


are in the strict sense solipsistic when taken literally by 
their advocates—which they never are. In neither case 
can we have plurality of perspectives, 7.e., perspectives 
from different frames of reference. If Leibnitz’s monad 
has no windows, it can know nothing but its own subjective 
perspective as individual history. If Spinoza’s absolute 
is all in all, there can be only one real view-point, the per- 
spective sub specie eternitatis, for the parts are merely 
functions of the whole. In our conception of reality there 
is real pluralism, though the parts move to a certain extent 
within cosmic control. The individual is not a mere func- 
tion of the whole, but contributes a unique perspective of 
value, a unique centre of creative response. If he surren- 
ders his will to a higher law, he at any rate has a will to 
yield. He does not move dumb and sightless within the 
fatality of the omnipotent order of the whole. 

The bifurcation into macrocosm and microcosm is an 
artificial and misleading abstraction. The individual is 
not a complete universe within himself mirroring in him- 
self, actually or potentially, the order of the whole, as 
Bruno and Leibnitz supposed. The relation of the indi- 
vidual to the whole is not a passive relation, but a relation 
of creative adaptation. And the individual part responds 
as it can by virtue of its history and structure to the 
order and levels within the whole. Comparatively few 
individuals are capable of responding to the higher levels 
of the whole in even a limited way. The creative advance 
of evolution has not affected all of nature equally. It is 
limited by the plasticity of the parts. The greater part 
of nature has become stereotyped within lower planes of 
organization. The material atoms, the bacteria, the pro- 
tozoa, etc., are not potentially rational animals. The 
amceba does not aspire to divinity. Its growth span is 
complete. It has matured in another plane. The indi- 
viduals in nature conform to certain types which have 
become relatively fixed in our geological evolution. Nature, 
at any rate, exists at any one time at a variety of levels. 
We cannot project it all on one plane, whether the plane 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 255 


of matter or the plane of mind. We must take account of 
qualitative levels, of types of adaptation. 

We can now see the significance both of the conception 
of a priori synthesis and of empiricism, another bifurca- 
tion of modern thought. The responses of every individ- 
ual to the stimuli of the environment are conditioned by 
the structure and duration of the individual. The atom 
responds as it does by virtue of its structure and duration. 
Within the organism, each level functions as it does within 
the control of the whole because of its structure and his- 
tory. The spinal cord has its structure and _ history 
which condition the control exercised by the higher levels. 
The cerebrum in turn responds to spatial relations and 
temporal rhythms by virtue of its schema which it super- 
imposes upon the lower centres. And the mental level of 
creative imagination, of significant analysis and synthesis, 
brings its own type of control. Our responses of truth, 
beauty, and right imply a dynamic constitution or struc- 
ture—certain laws of synthesis which we must try to dis- 
cover. Kant is right that our judgement of order in nature 
depends upon our sanity, the orderly functioning of our 
mind. The percipient individual is not a mere neutral 
blank, but a centre of attentive activity. The perspec- 
tives of mind are perspectives of interest. They are mean- 
ingful, enjoyed perspectives, not mere external actions 
and reactions, and they have their own laws. There is 
thus an a priori factor in the response of the individual to 
the environment. 

But minds do not exist in isolation. They are evolved 
to act in the environment. Their present structure is the 
result of a long trial and error process of creative adapta- 
tion to the structure of the environment. Hence the laws 
of mind are not foreign to nature. While it is true that 
the discovery of the order of nature is a creative synthesis 
on the basis of the laws of our minds, it is also true that 
the structure of our mind is the result of a long process 
of creative adaptation to nature. The subjective mind 
and objective nature are not arbitrarily brought into jux- 


256 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


taposition. If so, the problem of knowledge would be 
hopeless. But mind is at home in nature. The empiricist 
is right in holding that mind discovers the laws of nature 
and does not arbitrarily impose them. The perspectives 
of mind, corrected by the trial and error process of social 
experience, become for us perspectives of nature. Our sense 
of reality, our knowledge of nature, rests upon our subjec- 
tive perspectives, 2.e., our experience of reality. These 
perspectives are relative to the history of mind, racial and 
individual; and however much we may socialize them into 
impersonal systems of nature, they still remain relative 
to the advance of human experience at the time, and they 
still retain a certain subjectivity of meaning and value 
from the individual experience which does the generaliz- 
ing. Thus there is an element of a priori bias, in our search 
for truth, from our temporal mental constitution. 

To speak of the subjective contribution of mind as bias 
is, however, to belittle the transaction of the individual 
centre with the cosmos. It is because each finite centre of 
synthesis has to a degree a unique structure and history 
that the richness of reality arises. If each individual per- 
spective were a mere function of the whole, the problem 
of knowledge would indeed be simple. We should all per- 
ceive the same way, feel the same way, and judge the same 
way. There would be no dark corners in the universe. It 
is this simplicity which makes monism so alluring to the 
theorist. But what a monotonous world we should have. 
Such a world is a mere artificial abstraction. It is not our 
world. If our actual world has a certain opaqueness and 
blindness, due to the individual history of its parts, it is a 
world of creative adventure, of give and take, of comedy 
and tragedy. Adaptation is not an eternal fact, made out 
of one pattern. But it is a pluralistic, dynamic, forward- 
looking process. It is a co-operative undertaking between 
the individual and the cosmos. Insight is won, conscience 
is created, appreciation is cultivated in this creative ven- 
ture of living, of creatively discovering our function within 
the whole. We do not merely take, but give; and it is this 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 257 


willingness to participate in the law of the whole accord- 
ing to our individual genius that constitutes the true sig- 
nificance of life, the process of salvation—the genius of 
the whole eternally stimulating to higher rapport with 
itself and we responding by creative striving, first not 
knowing what we are doing and later consciously, however 
falteringly, entering into conspiracy with the genius of the 
whole to create a harmonious life. The search for truth, 
the love of beauty, the striving for right, are creative 
adaptations of the individual to the dynamic and over- 
arching constitution of the whole. ‘They are integral rela- 
tions to the whole, not abstract and isolated faculties in 
us. Thus is the individual oriented to the genius of the 
cosmos, but moves with a motion of his own. His willing- 
ness is a condition of his sharing in the supreme life of 
the whole. This makes his act significant and moral. 
The individual life is the great cosmic laboratory of 
creative synthesis where the energy pattern of the cosmos 
is transformed into creative intelligence. All insight, all 
value, is generated in this laboratory. All else is projected 
superstructure, symbolism. Cosmic interaction is an inter- 
action of individual centres of various levels of organiza- 
tion. In this interaction matter plays a fundamental, 
even though instrumental part. For it is through the 
organization of matter that higher levels arise in the evolu- 
tionary series. It is through the medium of matter, in its 
progressive organization, that quanta of higher levels of 
energy are captured and held for the time being in the 
organization of individual history. Matter is the instru- 
ment of energy exchange from the cosmos to the individ- 
ual and back again. It is through the organization of matter 
that habit and memory become possible, and. even the 
highest level of creative thought must work through the 
organization of matter—the organization of the physiolog- 
ical organism and the tools of inorganic matter—to realize 
its pattern activity. Matter is not a veil that separates 
the individual soul from the spiritual energy of the cosmos, 
but rather the instrumentation through which the divine 


258 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


harmony of the whole becomes an effective reality in each 
of us—the capacity of matter to act as vehicle increasing 
with the creative organization. 

After the extreme social emphasis of the last genera- 
tion, it is time for the pendulum to swing the other way, 
to monadism, the respect for the individual. We must 
not forget that the life of the human individual is not 
exhausted in social relations: “However organic be the 
community in which we live, man is a solitary no less than 
a social being, and his ideal world is at bottom inter- 
stitial. However much he acts in common, he wishes also 
to act alone; however much he thinks as a member of the 
herd, he will wish also to think as a lonely wanderer.” *° 
Man requires not merely society but solitude, he is not 
merely a talking animal but a meditative, mystical crea- 
ture. His inner life is not all exposed to the external 
observer and the world’s gossip, but there is also a certain 
privacy. Our mutual understanding is at best partial and 
through a glass darkly. The life of minding has an inner 
intimate aspect, as well as a public aspect, an aspect of 
appreciation as well as of description. All but extreme 
behaviourists have an inner aspect as well as an’ outer 
aspect. Man is not merely an organization of language 
mechanisms, but also a unique centre of creativeness and 
enjoyment. 

This does not mean that we should conceive the human 
individual as absolutely private and isolated, any more 
than that we should conceive him as a mere function of 
society. We must liberate ourselves from the false bifur- 
cation of individual and society. Each individual must 
live in the matrix of society and nature, but each indi- 
vidual has a unique structure and a unique motion, a 
personal history of his own. It is true that we must take 
account of the continuum of social relations and the cos- 
mic field with its curvature. But the continuum of social 
relations is not a Euclidian continuum. It is not indiffer- 
ent which standpoint we occupy. The perspectives of 

*® Harold J. Laski, The Problem of Sovereignty, pp. 264, 265. 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 259 


meaning and value vary with the personal history, though 
we must create a world of common measures for our living 
and acting together. But these at best are approximations, 
statistical averages. In fact, the subjective perspectives 
are qualitatively different and therefore incommensurable. 
But this is what gives richness and reality to life. 

It is not true that the personal centres are windowless 
as Leibnitz, who was a victim of the false bifurcation, sup- 
posed. Monads have windows. Lines of influence are com- 
municated in quanta from all sides and intersect in per- 
sonal histories. Mind has immediate communion not only 
with physical nature but also with minds. But each mind 
responds as it can by virtue of its own structure and dura- 
tion. The light breaks differently because of the struc- 
ture of the crystal. For the individual mind is not a 
neutral medium. If it were, there could be no individual- 
ity, no creative response. In fact, there could be no real- 
ity, since reality is a system of interactions of individual 
centres with their structure and motion. Each individual 
is a centre of creative synthesis within the matrix of the 
whole, with its hierarchy of levels. Each centre responds 
creatively to the control of the whole by virtue of its indi- 
vidual organization and history. The whole requires the 
part and must respect its individuality. The part in turn 
requires the matrix of the whole to live its life and must 
learn by a trial and error process to adjust itself to the 
law of the whole for its survival in the whole. The great 
advantage of life on the rational level is that the individ- 
ual can, however imperfectly, enter, consciously and crea- 
tively, into the law of the whole and the process of salva- 
tion within the whole, instead of blindly adjusting itself 
to the law of the whole. And the whole is not one plane, 
as we have seen, but an organization of qualitative levels, 
where the higher curves the lower within its control. 

The vistas of divine beauty open up from the creative 
life of the individual, however important are social converse 
and incentive. In the depths of his soul the individual 
must struggle with the angel of truth until the day break. 


260 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


Hence the importance of meditation. We have exalted too 
much Socrates the dialectician, and have neglected Socra- 
tes the dreamer with his superhuman capacity for detached 
meditation. We admire the beauty of the Sermon on the 
Mount, but we forget the withdrawal into the silence of 
the night. Man craves not only companionship, but to 
dream and to enjoy his soul apart, in communion with 
the depths. Man must have lived a long time in a world 
of dreams and fancy before his meditation took on the 
accompaniment of internal speech. And sometimes we 
recover something of the concrete inner life of an earlier 
epoch. There are moments when speech seems grey and 
bare. I have had moments when my soul has been touched 
by cosmic grandeur infinitely beyond speech. For what 
are words beside the glory of a sunset? Sometimes divinity 
comes over me like the surging tide of spring or the 
gentle melancholy of autumn or the rapture of a great 
symphony, but alas! my poor words cannot convey it. He 
must have a poor soul who can convey it all in words. In 
spite of my unworthiness, God has in rare moments opened 
vistas into the majesty of the whole which the world does 
not recognize, for seeing they see not, their souls being 
blind. Man may succeed in mapping the heavens. He 
may succeed in expressing external cosmic relations in 
universal laws. But there remains man’s individual and 
unique relation to the genius of the whole, the creative 
individual gift of value to the soul, the private communion 
of man with God, the most vital of all relations, and this 
defies expression in quantitative symbols. Hence we 
should jealously keep alive the fire on the altar of medita- 
tion and the right of individual conscience. 


Mind in the Cosmos 
In a large and profound sense we must conceive mind 
as part of nature. Mind is not indifferent to nature nor 
nature to mind. If the electron must be conceived as 
having its world field and if its equilibrium must be under- 
stood with reference to this field, so mind must be con- 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 261 


ceived as having a world field and its equilibrium must 
be understood with reference to this field with its hier- 
archy of levels, for if the free electron lives in only one 
level, we live in several levels. Finite mind must be con- 
ceived as a creative adaptation to the structure of the 
cosmic whole. We gain in concreteness in speaking of 
the percipient organism or the thinking organism, because 
in so speaking we emphasize that mind functions within 
nature, and thus we are able to break through the vicious 
bifurcation which has so long hampered our thought. 
Behaviourism has done real service in emphasizing that 
the most complex reactions as well as the simplest 
must be studied in the matrix of nature. The danger is 
that in emphasizing that all functioning, including the 
process of knowing, is part of nature we may try to assimi- 
late everything to the simplest types of behaviour in 
nature. 

This is what materialism does; and modern science is 
wedded to the ideal of mechanics. It tries to atomize 
nature and to reduce everything to external relations. It 
treats nature as merely objective and ignores the subjec- 
tive factor, thus making a false bifurcation at the outset. 
It confines itself to certain monotonous aspects of nature; 
and, in its onesided emphasis, it fails to understand even 
these, because these can be truly understood only in the 
wholeness of nature. In thus aligning itself with material- 
ism, science has landed in logical bankruptcy. In its grov- 
elling emphasis of the mechanical aspects of nature, it has 
missed the soul. It is as though one should limit oneself 
in the study of a poem to the letters, with their external 
relations and sequences, and ignore the meaning of the 
poem, forgetting that by this method one is unable to 
understand even the sequences of the letters, for the 
letters are part of a whole which has soul; and so are the 
physiological mechanisms of a human being part of a 
whole which has soul, and their behaviour can be under- 
stood only with reference to this whole. The remedy is 
not mysticism, the discrediting of thought, as some have 


262 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


supposed, but a more adequate conception of nature. We 
must be willing to recognize reality for what it is in its 
complexity and range of development, instead of forcing 
it into artificial models of our own making. 

Now, using nature in the comprehensive sense as the 
total matrix of reality, we must distinguish various discon- 
tinuous types of selective functioning. Protoplasm is selec- 
tive in a different way from an inorganic compound. It 
responds to light and other energies in ways peculiar to 
itself. With a differentiated nervous system new types 
of selection and synthesis appear. We have correlations 
of reflexes and habits. With the appearance of creative 
intelligence, we have a radically new method of selection 
and integration, cutting through and reconstructing the 
mechanical levels in various ways to serve the ends of 
purposive conduct. In the highest individuals we thus 
have a hierarchy of levels of functioning—tropism, reflex, 
habit, memory, abstraction, creative imagination—each 
evolutionary level integrated into the next higher level, 
with its characteristic selection and repression, and each 
level making its unique contribution within the control 
of the whole. 

If we would understand nature, we must place ourselves 
inside of nature instead of outside of nature, we must take 
the whole-point-of-view instead of the part-point-of-view. 
If we view man as part of the cosmic whole, owing his 
nature to that whole, then we can no more regard his 
capacity to think and his impulse to create, with its char- 
acteristic satisfaction, as accidental to nature than we do 
his primitive tendencies which materialism has empha- 
sized. The impulse for food and the impulse for sex are 
indeed adjustments to a whole larger than the individual 
organism. But why apotheosize the primitive adjust- 
ments and read all others out of court? Is not the logical 
impulse or the esthetic impulse just as truly a result of 
the interaction of the part with the whole? Are they not 
the result of the creative pressure of the whole and the 
creative response by the part? And are not the character- 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 263 


istic types of functioning to which they lead, the creative 
understanding of the universe and the creative apprecia- 
tion of the universe, as intrinsic to nature as the activities 
for food, shelter and reproduction? What fanciful dog- 
matism to regard the former activities as accidental and 
foreign to nature and to limit the scope of nature to what 
is real to a pig. No doubt to a pig it is thus limited. But 
we do not necessarily have to take the pig’s satisfaction 
as the ultimate criterion of value. There is a rank and 
dignity of reality of which the pig does not dream; and, 
with John Stuart Mill, I would rather be a “man dissatis- 
fied than a pig satisfied,” in spite of the pig-trough phi- 
losophy of our fashionable materialism. ‘There evidently 
are pigs enough to make a market for it and to enthrone 
-it in high places. 

Nor are we warranted in separating the logical and 
esthetic types of functioning sharply from each other and 
placing the chief emphasis upon the former as some are 
inclined to do. The logical and esthetic adjustments are 
both aspects of the functioning of creative imagination 
in its striving for rapport with the cosmos. Both require 
the whole-point-of-view of reality. In each case the analy- 
sis is for the sake of creative synthesis in harmony with the 
cosmos which has made us for this task, and which in the 
course of ages rewards our trial and error process with rap- 
port with itself. In each case the utilitarian aspect of 
the activity is secondary to the striving for harmony. If 
we must condemn the attempt of the ancients to reduce 
science to esthetic prejudice (such as that the planets 
must revolve in circles because circles are the most per- 
fect figures), we must equally condemn the attempt of 
modern science to treat truth as though it were a drab 
thing, foreign to the impulse of beauty. What we call 
disinterested curiosity is fundamentally an esthetic 
impulse for craftsmanship, a feeling for fitness, a bias for 
simplicity and harmony in a world which on the surface 
seems chaotic. The great scientific genius is spurred on 
to his creative discoveries by a feeling for beauty, a 


264 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


demand for form in the manifold of sense, however rig- 
orous his methods and tests. 

Nor can we regard the moral life as something acci- 
dental. It too must be understood as the striving for 
harmony of the part with the whole. And must we not 
hold that, in the last analysis, this striving is prompted 
by the whole? It is so prompted by the social milieu of 
which we are a part and which brings pressure to bear for 
our conformity. But above the social demands of the 
present there is the demand of the larger whole, the 
demand for creative adaptation to future society yet in 
the making, the demand for adaptation of our geological 
history to the more comprehensive constitution of the 
cosmos. Such adaptation to future levels cannot be stated 
in the barren terms of survival selection. People survive 
biologically and even socially at all sorts of stages of 
development. Indeed those who are farthest in advance 
in the creative adaptation to the future are generally 
deemed unfit by conventional society. It is only when 
this advance in turn is conventionalized that society 
builds tombs to the prophets. But there is always the new 
frontier which demands venture and sacrifice on the part 
of creative pioneers who are willing to go out into the 
silence and solitude inspired by the kingdom of heaven to 
be won. For these pioneers success is not estimated in 
terms of the preferment of rank and favour which con- 
ventional society bestows upon those who fawn and flatter, 
but in a sense of deeper insight and the creative birth of a 
larger harmony, however bitter may be the birth-throes. 
But if despised and rejected of men in their own day and 
often veiled in obscurity, in retrospect they stand out 
radiant amidst the sordidness of their time as silver 
birches stand radiant in the sunlight against the sombre 
forest—like brides waiting for the Son of God. 

This greater moral adaptation is not something apart 
from intellectual and esthetic adaptation, but on the con- 
trary 1t must include them. The striving after moral 
harmony, greater and nobler patterns of co-operation, a 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 265 


larger and nobler common life, must mean greater crea- 
tive thoughtfulness not only in the way of inventing 
instruments for social co-operation and for the mastery 
of matter, but still more in the way of appreciation of 
creative thought and of furnishing incentive to creative 
thought. This means the creation of a beautiful life and 
the encouragement of the creation of beauty. And since 
the profoundest moral adaptation must be creative adapta- 
tion to the future, the wholeness of life in the making, it 
must include religious adaptation, or rather be included in 
religious adaptation. For what is religious adaptation but 
a creative effort towards communion with the divine spirit 
of the whole which prompts eternally our creative striv- 
ing towards wholeness, towards higher and higher levels 
of rapport with itself? Towards this source of love and 
beauty our spirit strives as the plant turns toward the 
sunlight and as the thirsty womb of mother earth craves 
for the life-giving shower; and from this source flows grace 
abundant into the souls of those who are devoutly 
disposed. 

This conception of the cosmos in its wholeness includes 
not only human nature as part of nature, but it includes 
God, the supreme creative level of reality, as part of the 
cosmos. For it is a false bifurcation which separates God 
from nature as though the divine mind were only accident- 
ally joined to nature and as though nature had a life of 
its own independent of God. Such a bifurcation neces- 
sarily leads to materialism, as indeed it has done in the 
history of thought. On the contrary, nature is what it 
is, it has determinate order and law, it evolves towards 
truth and beauty because it is under the creative control 
of God. Else were there no creative advance in nature. 
Matter would present but a chaos of random motions. It 
would lack organization. In such a case, we could dis- 
cover no laws in nature, because there would be no laws. 
But the divine level must incarnate itself in matter. 
Because of this ordering level there is a hierarchy of 
advance in nature. From the point of view of the whole 


266 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


of the cosmos, we can see both the rationale and impor- 
tance of the lower types of levels of which materialism has 
made so much. Matter is indispensable to the evolution 
and activity of a higher type of life. Matter is necessary 
to the exchange of energy from one system to another, and 
matter in its various stages of organization furnishes the 
basis of duration. It makes conservation of the past pos- 
sible and thus is the basis of capacity for further develop- 
ment. The divine life must incarnate itself in matter in 
order to express itself and become effective in its control. 
The divine order is known to us, not as disembodied spirit, 
but as incarnate spirit. 

But matter, with its plurality of motion, is also the 
basis of inertia.. It thus accounts for the relativity in 
the various stages of organization. It furnishes not only 
the body and instruments of creative form, but it also fur- 
nishes certain limitations to creative form. The creative 
pattern is not realized in vacuo. If so, there would be no 
problems to solve, no failure, no evil, but neither would 
there be any creation. The mystics who have always made 
matter responsible for evil have forgotten that matter also 
means creative possibility. Evil is inherent not in matter 
as such, but in the hierarchy of organization where each 
level has an inertia of its own, and where its motion must 
be curved within a higher system of control. But were 
there no inertia there would be nothing to control, hence 
no activity. 

If the cosmic point of view makes significant the levels 
of reality which materialism has emphasized, it also makes 
significant the higher levels which idealism has empha- 
sized. The levels of life and mind and higher levels are 
not mere pensioners of the lower material levels. They 
exist eternally in their own right in the cosmos and they 
exercise control over the lower levels. They do not exist 
in separation from the lower, but use the lower as mech- 
anisms for their own realization. And because they are 
intrinsic to cosmic structure, they can produce adaptive 
evolution toward the future in the lower levels in the 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 267 


course of any one life series such as our geological history. 
They are the natura naturans, or creative nature, with ref- 
erence to the lower levels, the natura naturata, the 
advance already made. We must be careful, however, in 
using this contrast of creative nature and created nature 
not to project them on one plane as pantheism has done. 
Pantheism has treated created nature as the phenomenal 
manifestation of a unitary inclusive soul. Rather is the 
relation that of a hierarchy of levels. And this makes 
the distinction relative in the creative advance of nature, 
created nature indicating the advance already made, crea- 
tive nature the advance to be made; but past and future 
in any one history are both relative to the law of the whole, 
the creative pattern of the cosmos, the genius of God. 

If we transfer what we have learned of the economy of 
human nature with its levels of control to the cosmos as a 
whole with its vastly greater complexity and its greater 
range of levels, then we must think of cosmic control, not 
as an abstract system of ideas, but as a hierarchy of energy 
patterns, including suprahuman levels of control at the 
yonder end, but also including the scale of levels which 
we can identify in our experience—minded matter, organic 
matter and inorganic matter. We must conceive these 
levels as each functioning differently for being part of 
this hierarchy of levels, as the spinal cord behaves dif- 
ferently for being part of the cerebro-spinal hierarchy. 
But within this hierarchical organization we must also 
conceive each level as having its own life, individuality, 
and inertia, due to its own history and structure. And the 
lower levels may become functionally separated from the 
control of the higher levels and revert to their own primi- 
tive reactions, as we find, alas! too often to be the case, 
not only within the economy of physiological organization, 
but within the economy of the individual soul and in social 
groups. The greater the complexity, the greater the degrees 
of freedom, and therefore the greater the danger of run- 
ning amuck. But it is precisely in self-surrender to the 
higher control and in creative co-operation with this con- 


268 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


trol that our salvation lies. Our life destiny must be 
found within the whole. We cannot live truly as parts. 
True freedom is a freedom which finds its vocation in 
creative co-operation within the larger whole. Any other 
exercise of freedom is but suicide. 

Broadly speaking, and with due allowance for the limi- 
tation of our insight, we may conceive of the genius of 
God as bearing the same relation to the hierarchy of levels 
in the cosmos as our mind bears to the levels of human 
nature. As the human organism is instinct with soul and 
expresses soul, so nature in*its wholeness is instinct with 
God and expresses God. And yet nature as we know it is 
not God any more than the organism is soul. Each part 
of nature responds, through creative adaptation, to God 
as it is able, by virtue of its history and organization. But 
all nature responds to God in some fashion. Else there 
would be no creative advance of nature. The energy pat- 
terns of the divine life reach everywhere. Just what the 
nature of God’s pervasiveness is we cannot say. We may 
speak of it as infiltration, osmosis, induction, influence. 
But these are metaphors. The pervasiveness must differ 
with the organization of nature, its dialysis, its inductive 
capacity for receiving God at any particular level. But 
somehow the energy of God radiates throughout, and 
energy radiates back from nature to God. There is a con- 
tinual interaction and exchange. God is not a passive 
spectator of nature. He does not live His life in blissful 
and indifferent isolation, as Aristotle conceived Him. 
Rather He interpenetrates nature, becomes progressively 
incarnate in nature, and is responsive to the striving of 
nature. There is nothing foreign or indifferent to Him. 
To Him is present in sympathetic sharing the whole striv- 
ing, surging life of nature with its undertone of grief like 
the sobbing of the sea, until nature is prepared at its 
higher levels to enter into creative participation with His 
life and in creative union with Him finds atonement. His 
pervasive, organizing, redeeming genius makes nature holy 
ground. Everywhere the devout soul can feel His pres- 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 269 


ence, awesome as the silence of the primeval pinewoods 
and kindly as sunshine after rain. In the words of Xeno- 
phanes: He hears all over, sees all over, thinks all over, 
and sways all things by the power of His mind. 

Yet while God is active on all the levels of nature, the 
lower levels cannot respond to God in kind. The dog, 
however loyal, cannot share the mind of a Newton in kind; 
he cannot enter into his meaning or understand his unique 
life. And so we must respond to God in loyalty as we can. 
We speak of God’s life as mind—thought, beauty, spiritual 
activity—because these are the highest categories we 
know. But we must not suppose that mind as we know it 
is adequate to God. Even with us we have seen that the 
concept of mind covers a large range of qualitative levels, 
and other levels may still emerge. But whatever more 
God is, He is life and mind. What God is in His own 
quality we cannot know. There is a quality of each higher 
level which cannot be comprehended in terms of the levels 
below it. The quality of life cannot be comprehended in 
inorganic terms, neither can mind be comprehended in 
organic terms. And so with the further levels. The mys- 
tics have said: “To know God is to be God”; and this is 
true if we mean to know God in kind. But we can dis- 
cover a nisus towards higher levels in the story of nature, 
and we are conscious of our own imperfection and limita- 
tion. We have seen that the whole scale of levels, includ- 
ing the highest, must coexist in the cosmos in order to 
produce a nisus in any finite history towards higher levels. 
Else were the higher levels chance additions. Our impulse 
to create harmony must be begotten in us by the harmony 
of the whole. The saying of the mystics that God is pres- 
ent everywhere in activity but not in essence, holds in the 
sense that nature responds to the activity of God at its 
various levels as it can, even as the various levels of our 
organism respond to mind as they can, but we cannot 
respond in kind to the unity of God until we are trans- 
formed in the course of creative adaptation into His like- 
ness, if that can ever be in earthly history. Only when 


270 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


we live God can we truly know God as mind knows mind, 
but we can establish such rapport with God as our capaci- 
ties permit. That is piety, and true piety is creative piety, 
not passive piety. 

To the supermind of cosmic control, however incompe- 
tent we are to conceive its characteristic unity, we may 
believe that the perspectives of which we can take account 
and the levels which we can discover in our truncated life 
have their unique and complete significance. The proper- 
ties of material systems have their function as the skeletal 
framework and instrument. Without matter the higher sys- 
tems of life and mind could not develop and function. But 
matter does not exist in the cosmos in isolation from the 
higher levels. It owes its order and laws to the control by 
higher levels. In turn, each lower level makes its unique 
contribution to the next level in the forward-looking adap- | 
tation. And the level in which we live, think, appreciate, 
and worship makes its forward-looking adaptation also to 
the future, 7.e., to the creative genius of the whole. We 
may believe, too, that as there is selection and suppression 
inthe integrating of each lower level into a higher one in 
the human economy, so within the highest integration 
there must be selection of the significant and suppression 
of the irrelevant aspects—only those aspects which are 
relevant entering into the crowning synthesis where there 
is no longer the confusion which exists in our part histo- 
ries with their imperfect co-ordination and control. We 
must believe that the superintelligence of God is something 
far more luminous and thoroughly integrated than we 
can conceive, and His supergoodness and superbeauty 
something far more unified and harmonious than we can 
dream. And as in our life there may be sublimation of 
our refractory impulses on a higher plane of synthesis 
within the abandon to a more comprehensive activity, so 
we may believe that much that seems wreckage to us may 
be redeemed within the divine unity. Such sublimation 
is atonement as we know it in our finite experience. | 

And what about our individual destiny within the econ- 


THE MINDED ORGANISM AND THE COSMOS 271 


omy of the whole? Is the creative advance of nature lim- 
ited to the race, or is there creative advance for the indi- 
vidual beyond this earthly career? Certain it is that if 
mind is the function of neural organization, if it is the 
mere realization of the organism, the mere consciousness 
of the harmony of the body, there can be no individual 
immortality. This Plato truly saw. On the materialistic 
theory, our conscious intelligence is like a shooting star, 
vanishing into the darkness whence it came. [Even so, 
there is the history of the race where a few individuals 
have succeeded in leaving a discernible trail—some a, trail 
of light and others a trail of blood. But human history, 
too, sinks into oblivion at last, for the earthly career of 
the race must end and the earth as a planet must eventu- 
ally run its course and disappear into star-dust again. On 
the materialistic theory soul can have no final significance 
in the universe. But we do not have to accept the word 
of the materialist. The soul is not a function of the body, 
but an energy pattern, potent to control the physiological 
levels. Aristotle in his Psychology suggests, contrary to 
his own theory, that the soul as the perfect realization of 
the body may “stand to it in the same separable relation 
as a sailor to his boat.” ‘This is too artificial a conception. 
But if the soul is more than body it does not necessarily 
share the dissolution of the body. And we have seen that 
the soul adds a new pattern to the body levels. 

If, as we have tried to show, there must be a Supermind, 
ever existing and guiding the cosmic process; if our minds 
are the creative patterns of this Supermind, incarnate in 
matter, then we may believe that this Supermind will con- 
serve the significant patterns. Aquinas distinguishes 
between adherent forms which perish with the matter and 
separable forms, such as human souls, which can exist 
after the dissolution of the body. But in some beings, 
whom we call human, the interests of life seem to be 
largely, if not altogether, adherent to organic impulses 
and needs. We are in no position to dogmatize. All we 
can say is that even as the human creator of a pattern 


272 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


loves the pattern and tries to conserve the significant 
pattern of his creation, and as society tries within its limi- 
tations to conserve significant patterns, so the supreme 
creative genius must love his created patterns, and so far 
as they can be saved consistently with the unity of the 
whole, must wish to save them and if possible restore them 
if lost. And the supreme creative genius cannot fail in 
his intent as the individual fails and even society fails. 


PART III 
RELATIVITY AND COSMIC EVOLUTION 


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CHAPTER VI 
THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 


THE twilight of the gods is at hand. And all man-made 
gods in our temporal order have their twilight. Thus rela- 
tivity reigns. Galileo and Newton, the gods of the first 
phase of the Copernican age, have had a glorious era. 
They have provided the framework of modern science. 
They are the gods of the absolutes—absolute motion, abso- 
lute space, absolute time. Yet they are not truly Coper- 
nican, for in spite of their wide-reaching horizon they are 
still earth-bound. Their absolutes are but the emasculate 
abstractions of certain empirical facts as they observed 
them—a certain correlation of the motions of tides and 
planets from the point of view of our terrestrial experience 
which they generalized and then erected their abstractions 
into norms for the universe as a whole. There is a cer- 
tain degree of persistence of matter and motion under the 
complex conditions of our experience. Hence classical 
mechanics postulates absolute persistence under abstract 
conditions. Certain rates of motion appear constant under 
the limitations of ordinary experience. Hence it postu- 
lates an absolute rate of motion. Some bodies are well- 
nigh rigid and their lengths can be practically trusted 
under standardized conditions. Hence it postulates abso- 
lute rigidity and absolute measures. Identically con- 
structed clocks keep time together; and the earth clock 
within the limitation of ordinary experience seems con- 
stant. Hence it postulates an absolute flow of time. The 
founders of classical mechanics could not very well have 
derived their standards from the perception of an abso- 
lute rate of motion, since none such has been found. The 
Michelson experiment has dashed the hopes of the absolut- 
275 


276 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


ists. The absolute motion of the earth relative to the 
ether has proved a fiction, and relativity reigns. The tra- 
ditional ether has had a truly marvellous career. It has 
been invoked to solve a motley brood of difficulties. It 
has been supposed to function as a perfect fluid and as a 
perfect jelly. In Fizeau’s experiments on the transmis- 
sion of light in water tubes, it appears to be stationary 
with reference to the fixed stars. In the Michelson-Mor- 
ley experiment, it appears to move exactly with the veloc- 
ity of the earth. But now the old ether has gone to join 
the breed of hybrid fictions, the mermaids and centaurs, in 
fairyland. Since it does not make itself known to our 
observation under test conditions, it is, at any rate, useless. 


The Michelson Experiment and the Fitzgerald 
Contraction 

The new theories of relativity take as their starting 
point the Michelson and Morley experiment, which goes 
back to 1886. The results of this experiment are now an 
old story and therefore it is only necessary to recall the 
main features. The object of the experiment was to 
ascertain the ether drift with reference to the earth. Since 
light 1s supposed to be the characteristic motion of the 
ether on the undulatory theory, the problem resolved 
itself into discovering the difference which the motion of 
the earth makes to light signals. Since the velocity of 
light was assumed to be constant, it seemed possible that 
we might find the absolute motion of the earth in the ether 
and thus cap Newtonian mechanics. In general, the experi- 
ment consisted of dividing a light ray so as to send two 
signals along arms of equal length, one along an arm in 
the direction of the earth’s motion, the other at right 
angles to it in the transverse direction, each signal being 
reflected back by a mirror to an interferometer. As the 
earth, according to the Copernican theory, is moving in 
its orbit at the rate of twenty miles a second, the signal 
sent along the arm in the direction of the earth’s motion 
should travel a longer distance than the signal sent along 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 277 


the arm at right angles to the motion, on the basis of New- 
tonian mechanics, and the difference should be well within 
the limits of observation. ‘The experiment, which has 
been repeated a number of times with variations, has so 
far yielded a paradoxical result. It matters not how the 
signals are sent, they arrive in the interferometer simul- 
taneously, 2.e., there are no interference fringes. Every- 
thing happens as though the earth were stationary in the 
ether, as indeed Descartes held long ago. Yet if we take 
the sun as our body of reference, the earth appears to 
move in its orbit at the rate of twenty miles a second. The 
experiment thus upsets the classical mechanics which 
it was meant to confirm. It does not seem possible to 
establish the motion of the earth with reference to 
the ether; hence we can have no absolute reference frame 
for estimating motion, and our judgements in regard to 
motion must be relative, as they have, in fact, always 
been. 

When our scientific house is upset, it is natural that we 
should try to restore it with the least rearrangement pos- 
sible. This is what happened in this instance; and so 
we have the contraction theory suggested by Fitzgerald 
and Lorentz, and given classical form by the latter. This 
theory attempts a physical explanation of the paradoxical 
result of the Michelson experiment. It holds that the 
reason for the failure of the experiment to detect the 
ether drift is that the earth and everything that is part of 
it contracts in the direction of its motion to just the extent 
to compensate for the difference in the length of the paths 
as predicted by classical mechanics which assumes a rigid 
earth. The arm in the transverse direction is assumed to 
be constant, and there is no evidence to the contrary. The 
reason then that everything happens as though the earth 
were at rest is that the supposedly longer path has been 
shortened to compensate for the motion of the earth. 
“When the apparatus has been turned through a right 
angle, the experiment gives the same result. It does not 
matter which of the two arms we place in the direction of 


278 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the earth’s motion, that arm must be shorter than the 
other. In other words, each arm must contract automati- 
cally when it is turned from the transverse to the longitu- 
dinal position with respect to its line of motion. This is 
the Fitzgerald contraction of a moving rod. It is of the 
same amount whatever the material of the rod, and 
depends only on the speed of its motion. For the earth’s 
orbital motion the contraction amounts to one part in 200 
million; in fact, the earth’s diameter in the direction of its 
motion is always shortened by 214 inches, the transverse 
diameter being unaffected.” ! 

The contraction theory was invented to account for 
the result of the Michelson experiment. But as Professor 
Eddington, one of its critics, whom I have just quoted, goes 
on to say, the theory is “not at all disagreeable to theoret- 
ical anticipations. We have to remember that a rod con- 
sists of a large number of molecules kept in position by 
their mutual forces. The chief force is the force of cohe- 
sion, and there is little doubt that this is relative in nature. 
But when the rod is set in motion, the electrical forces 
inside it must change. For example, each electrical charge 
when set in motion becomes an electric current; and the 
currents will exert magnetic attractions on each other 
which did not occur in the system at rest. Under the 
new system of forces the molecules will have to find new 
positions of equilibrium, they become differently spaced; 
and it is therefore not surprising that the form of the rod 
changes. Without going beyond the classical laws of Max- 
well we can anticipate theoretically what will be the new 
equilibrium state of the rod, and it turns out to be con- 
tracted to the exact amount required by the Michelson- 
Morley result.” " The earth travels in its orbit twenty 
miles a second. If it travelled eight times faster, the con- 
traction would be about one-half. But since our bodies 
are part of the crust of the earth and our astronomical 
instruments are part of the same crust, they alike would 


* A. S. Eddington, “The Theory of Relativity and Its Influence on 
Scientific Thought,” the Scientific Monthly, Vol. XVI, pp. 37, 38. 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 279 


vary with it, and our senses would not be able to detect 
the contraction. 

So long therefore as we keep our earth as our frame of 
reference, everything happens as though we were at rest 
in the ether. It is only when we select a frame of refer- 
ence outside the earth and at rest with reference to it, such 
as the sun, that the problem arises. It is then that we 
come to the realization that a contraction must have taken 
place. We find, moreover, that the motion which has led 
to the contraction of our lengths has also led to a com- 
pensatory retardation of our clocks. Both the lengths 
and the clock intervals have different values because of 
the motion of the earth. Our space and time, therefore, 
are relative to the motion of the earth. We have local 
space and local time. Assuming the absolute velocity of 
light, and knowing the velocity of the earth, we can trans- 
form the units of our local space and time into the units 
of the frame of reference which is at rest with reference 
to the earth. Thus we have the Lorentz transformation 
formule. It should be borne in mind that the contraction 
theory is a relativity theory. In fact it was Lorentz who 
first used the expression “local space.” If we assign a 
privileged position to the Copernican theory, the contrac- 
tion theory is at any rate not arbitrary. 


The Special Theory of Relativity 

The theory of relativity, however, is associated at pres- 
ent especially with the name of Einstein, who, as a matter 
of fact, has given us two theories of relativity, one called 
the special or restricted theory of relativity, the other and 
later one, the general theory of relativity. The special 
theory of relativity starts, as does the Fitzgerald-Lorentz 
hypothesis, with the results of the Michelson-Morley 
experiment. But it gives these results a different inter- 
pretation. It abandons the conception of physical con- 
traction and gives local space and local time a new mean- 
ing. It assumes rigid Euclidian frames of reference in 
uniform motion—motion in isolation or away from any 


280 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


disturbing field. For such motions Newton’s law of per- 
sistence holds. An observer in uniform motion has no 
way of knowing that he is in motion or of measuring his 
motion so far as his own reference frame is concerned, 2.é., 
the body on which he is moving. Strictly speaking this 
would not hold for rotational motion, such as that of the 
earth, for there we can detect the motion by means of 
Foucault’s pendulum. But an observer in non-rotational 
uniform motion may regard himself and his frame of ref- 
erence as at rest with reference to other frames of refer- 
ence in relative motion to his frame of reference and with 
parallel axes. Everything goes for him as though he were 
at rest in a Newtonian reference frame, 7.e., he regards his 
units of space and time as constant. 

It is in his measurements of other motions that prob- 
lems arise. Each reference frame has its proper space, 
proper time, proper mass, proper energy, which is that of 
a body at rest. Descartes is at rest in his boat from Dover 
to Calais, and not only that, but the boat, his frame of ref- 
erence, is at rest, while the sea is moving past him and 
Calais is moving to meet him. If he experiences any dis- 
comfort from motion it is from watching the environment 
moving past, granting of course that the motion is uni- 
form. An observer on another reference frame in relative 
motion to Descartes has the same privilege of regarding 
himself and his reference frame at rest while Descartes’ 
boat moves past. So long as Newton takes the earth as 
his frame of reference he is quite right in regarding his 
measures of space and time as constant, but the earth has 
no privileged character in this respect as contrasted with 
other bodies in relative motion with reference to it. The 
Copernican and Ptolemaic theories are alike arbitrary and 
relative. The former has no privileged character, though 
it may prove more convenient in making our calculations. 

The basic concept in the special theory of relativity is 
that of simultaneity. Simultaneity is determined in prac- 
tice by light signals. When light signals, which are sent 
from two positions within a reference frame and reflected 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 281 


by properly placed mirrors, can be observed at once in a 
middle position, we regard the signals as simultaneous. 
Suppose now that we have two frames of reference, a train 
on the one hand and an embankment on the other, one in 
apparent motion with reference to the other. The observer 
on the embankment measures off his ground and ascer- 
tains a middle position from which he observes the signals. 
An observer on the train who is conscious of the experi- 
ment, likewise measures off a distance which contains the 
same number of feet in terms of his foot rule and finds a 
middle position. When the middle position of the observer 
on the train is opposite the middle position of the observer 
on the embankment, the signals are automatically set off. 
The observer on the embankment judges them simulta- 
neous from his frame of reference and the observer on 
the train likewise judges them simultaneous from his 
frame of reference. Everything happens as though each 
frame of reference were stationary with reference to light. 
The velocity of light 1s independent, not only of its source 
but of the motion of the observer. If there were just one 
frame of reference in uniform motion, there could be no 
judgement of motion. 

The problem of relativity arises when an observer on 
one frame of reference makes judgements about events on 
another frame of reference. When the observer on the 
embankment, for example, makes judgements about simul- 
taneity on the train, he calculates that, since the train is 
moving, an observer in a middle position on the train 
receives the signal toward which he is moving earlier than 
the other one, and the observer on the train, who like- 
wise regards himself and his reference frame at rest, makes 
the same judgement about the signals on the embankment. 
Simultaneity has a different meaning when it concerns 
events on our own frame of reference from what it has 
when it concerns events from another frame of reference 
as they appear to us in perspective, or rather are thus cal- 
culated; and the same of course is true of succession. 
Since light is not instantaneous, but has finite velocity, it 


282 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


cannot well be otherwise. The appearance of light from 
Sirius which is compresent with me would be compresent 
with an observer on Sirius eight light years ago. We have 
to take into account time as well as space, when we observe 
events from other frames of reference. By space here is 
meant units of space measurement, and by time is meant 
intervals by the clock. The phenomena of special rela- 
tivity are supposed to arise when an observer on one 
frame of reference takes account of events in perspective 
on another frame of reference in relative motion to him. 
As such a perspective involves time as well as space, it 
may be called a space-time perspective. 

It is assumed that all frames of reference are equivalent 
and that their own local time and local space are Euclid- 
ian. Any frame of reference is at rest for measurements 
upon it. When our frames of reference are stationary 
with reference to each other, we can compare our meas- 
ures—superimpose our yard sticks and compare our clocks 
and thus make sure that our measures are the same. These 
measures according to the special theory of relativity do 
not vary intrinsically with the relative motion. It is only 
the appearances of measures in space-time perspective 
that alter. It seems to us on the embankment that the 
lengths on the passing train are shorter and that the clock 
intervals are correspondingly longer; and in this way we 
account for the fact that the observer on the train is 
unable to detect that he is moving with reference to light, 
z.€., absolutely, and so regards his frame of reference as 
stationary. And the observer on the train who observes 
the embankment as moving in his perspective makes the 
same Judgement about the seemingly stationary character 
of the embankment to the observer on the embankment. 

The results are just the same as those of the contraction 
theory. In fact, Einstein took over the equations of 
Lorentz bodily. This is natural enough when it is the 
same facts, those of the Michelson-Morley experiment, 
which are to be accounted for, viz., why the apparent 
motion of the earth makes no difference to light signals. 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 283 


But the interpretation is vastly different. On the Lorentz 
theory a real physical contraction takes place; and there- 
fore it is not indifferent which frame of reference you 
occupy. The special theory of relativity holds, on the 
contrary, that there is no intrinsic contraction and that 
relativity concerns only appearances in space-time per- 
spective when two frames of reference are in relative 
motion to each other. It is indifferent which frame of 
reference you occupy, the appearances are the same. The 
apparent shortening of lengths and lengthening of time 
intervals when we take account of events on another frame 
of reference are not intrinsic changes but external appear- 
ances and reversible. 

Let us use a somewhat different illustration to bring 
out the point of the special theory of relativity. We shall 
suppose that the conductor on a long train has received 
orders to measure the length of the train while it is in rapid 
relative movement. He must assume, of course, that his 
train is at rest but the embankment is moving, and he 
makes his measurements accordingly. But he cannot step 
off and measure, because the road-bed, rails, embankment, 
etc., are moving past at a rapid rate; so he has to do his 
measuring on the train. He decides to use a flash of light 
from the front end of the engine to the rear platform. He 
standardizes the clocks of the sending end and the receiv- 
ing end by bringing them together, so as to make sure that 
they are synchronous. ‘The sending instrument automat- 
ically records the time to a small fraction of a second 
and the receiving instrument likewise records the time. 
The signal is sent, the records are compared and the length 
of the train calculated, which is easy since we know the 
velocity of light—viz., about 186,000 miles a second. All 
is satisfactory to the conductor. It is necessary for the 
conductor to use a light signal as the means of measure- 
ment, because only so could an observer on the embank- 
ment join in the experiment and only so could we get 
the relation of optical perspective between the two frames 
of reference without which the point would be lost. 


284 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


An observer from a balloon attached to the embank- 
ment notes the point on the rail where the signal is touched 
off and the point on the rail at the other end of the train 
and measures the distance by means of a light signal 
through a similar arrangement as that of the observer on 
the train, the clocks having been previously synchronized 
with the clocks used on the train. It is found to make no 
difference with reference to light whether the measure- 
ment is made on the train or on the embankment. But to 
the observer on the embankment the length of the train 
as measured by the conductor is foreshortened by the fact 
that the train appears to move to meet the signal, and his 
clocks must be correspondingly retarded since they fail 
to show the fact. Of. course to the conductor on the train 
who regards the train as stationary and the embankment as 
moving, the appearances are simply reversed and he judges 
the length to be shortened and the clock intervals to be 
lengthened in the measurement on the embankment. 

But you say why not use a yard stick instead of a light 
signal? Suppose we do. We shall standardize our yard 
sticks by superimposing them or even use the same yard 
stick and we shall find that the measurement comes out 
the same whether we measure the train on the train when 
in relative motion to the embankment or mark off the dis- 
tance on the embankment and measure it. But how shall 
we know whether the yard stick remains the same length 
in each process of measurement? The reason light is used 
is that the velocity of light is assumed to be constant. 
Hence we can find a basis of comparison between the 
lengths and clock intervals as they appear to us on our 
frame of reference and as they appear to us when we 
take account of another frame of reference in relative 
motion to ourselves. 

As a matter of fact, we should notice no difference so 
long as we deal with such slow motions as trains and 
embankments, but let the train be the earth and the 
embankment the sun, and then we have the Michelson 
experiment. To an observer on the sun it would appear 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 285 


that if we measured distances on the earth by sending 
light signals in the opposite direction from the earth’s 
motion, the distance should be foreshortened by the earth 
moving in the direction of the flash, and that the reason 
this does not appear to us is that our clocks are correspond- 
ingly retarded by virtue of the earth’s motion. So long as 
we use the earth as our frame of reference, we can treat 
measurements on the earth as absolute. It is only because 
Michelson used the sun as his frame of reference that 
any doubt was raised as to the validity of the Newtonian 
conception of absolute units of time and space. The units 
appear to vary with the perspective when two bodies are 
in relative motion to each other, and this has given rise 
to the theories of relativity. 

Suppose the speed of the train were 161,000 miles a 
second, then the lengths on the train when taken account 
of in space-time perspective from the embankment would 
appear as only one-half of what they would be if the 
train were stationary with reference to the embankment, 
and the clock intervals would appear twice as long. We 
know now of Beta rays from uranium which move with 
a velocity ninety-eight per cent that of light, and there- 
fore relativity has become of interest as a problem in our 
terrestrial environment. Since the velocity is the product 
of an arbitrarily chosen time interval and an arbitrarily 
chosen space length, it remains constant. It is the dis- 
tribution between space and time which varies. 

The common sense reader has probably become impa- 
tient by this time and perhaps says that we are merely 
trifling, that, of course, we know we are moving when we 
are on the train and that the embankment is not moving, 
etc. But the fact is that motion makes a difference to our 
judgements of even such abstract quantities as space and 
time. And can we be so sure that we know when we are 
moving? The human race for long ages regarded the earth 
as an absolute frame of reference, but now we find it 
simpler to take the earth as moving and to take the sun 
as our frame of reference. But while the sun may be 


286 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


regarded as stationary with reference to the earth, the 
sun too is moving and the earth is moving with it; and 
so far as we know there is nothing stationary. Our judge- 
ments of space and time are, therefore, necessarily rela- 
tive, and it is merely a question of convenience what body 
we regard as reference frame. Rest and motion seem 
equally relative. 

The special theory of relativity is startling in its sim- 
plicity and revolutionary of our common sense notions. 
When you are running your automobile at fifty miles an 
hour and you are stopped by a policeman for speeding, 
you can tell him that you were really at rest in your car 
but that he, the policeman, and the street and the houses 
were rushing past you at fifty miles an hour. The police- 
man, with his common sense bias, listens incredulously to 
your explanation and takes you to the police station; and 
there in due time you will repeat your story to the judge 
who will send you to the insane asylum, though accord- 
ing to the theory of relativity you are perfectly correct in 
your statements. But alas! the police authorities are 
equally correct in their statements, and they have the 
long end of the law. And they are likely to have it so 
long as it 1s necessary to protect society from speeders; 
for spite of theories of relativity the most convenient way 
to protect society seems to be to arrest speeders. 

The idea of gravitation loses its mystery for the special 
theory of relativity. If you should fall from a high 
tower, you could reply, if someone should shout from 
below that you are falling, that so far as you are con- 
cerned, you are stationary, but that the ground below is 
rushing up at you. Of course there is acceleration which 
remains to be accounted for, but this can be attributed to 
a demon. The advocates of this brand of relativity seem 
to have an indefinite supply of demons at their disposal. 
The increase of mass and still greater increase of energy 
of particles moving with a speed approximating that of 
light does not bother the enthusiast of relativity. Sup- 
pose you are riding astride of a Beta particle shot out 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 287 


from uranium with a velocity of ninety-eight per cent 
that of light and a spectator on the seemingly solid ground 
remarks that you are going with an enormous speed and 
that your mass and energy are vastly increased, you can 
reply that all that is merely a matter of appearance, that 
really you are at rest and your “proper mass” and “proper 
energy” and “proper time” and “proper space” are con- 
stant, but that, as it appears to you, the observer on the 
ground and the body to which he is attached have come 
to have a sudden increase of mass and energy. All of 
which is very bewildering, but we are assured by so respect- 
able an authority as Professor Eddington that it is really 
so. If Eddington were as theological as Descartes, he 
might fortify himself with the assertion that God makes 
it appear that way to us and God cannot lie. For are not 
our ideas mathematically clear and distinct? 

According to the theory of relativity, it is indifferent 
which frame of reference the observer occupies. But how 
can we then explain the phenomena which seem due to 
rotation—the centrifugal forces, the deviation of the pen- 
dulum’? Professor Whitehead has said that Einstein’s 
theory explains gravitation but makes a mystery of rota- 
tion. Obviously Einstein cannot explain centrifugal force 
as due to the absolute rotation of the earth in the ether 
as Newton did. It would have to be explained by the field 
outside the earth. It is as though the earth were the apex 
of an inverted pyramid. But this seems to demand a dis- 
tribution of matter which is arbitrary so far as our present 
knowledge is concerned. Moreover any other frame of 
reference which we choose to select would have to be 
regarded similarly as the apex of the pyramid. But here 
we are anticipating the general theory of relativity, for the 
special theory can deal only with uniform motion with 
parallel axes. 

The only facts for the special theory of Rete as 
Kinstein himself says, are the apparent shortening of the 
lengths and lengthening of time-intervals as indicated by 
the Michelson experiment. It is an alternative to the 


288 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


contraction theory of Fitzgerald and Lorentz in account- 
ing for the results of this experiment, though it seems to 
be capable of wider application. Into these we cannot go. 
For example, physicists like J. J. Thomson and others dis- 
covered at the beginning of the century that in the case 
of radio-active emanations which have a velocity which 
approximates light, there is a great increase of mass and 
a vastly greater increase of energy because of the high 
velocity. Einstein sides with those who have come to 
regard mass as identical with inertia, and inertia as a form 
of energy. This greatly simplifies the concepts of physics. 
According to the special theory of relativity, however, the 
increase of mass and energy in the case of the electron of 
high velocity is merely apparent. Since the frames of ref- 
erence are reversible, we can place ourselves on the elec- 
tron instead of on the embankment, and regard our elec- 
tron as at rest with reference to the embankment. In that 
case we cannot speak of the electron as having an increase 
of mass or energy. The observer would abide in the local 
space and local time of the electron. But the lengths, 
time-intervals, mass, and energy of the surrounding field 
would appear altered. 

The special theory distinguishes between the proper 
space, proper time, proper mass, and proper energy of a 
frame reference and the apparent or kinetic characters 
which are the appearances in perspective to an observer 
on another frame of reference in relative motion to it. To 
the imaginary observer on the Beta electron with a veloc- 
ity of ninety-eight per cent that of light (as we vulgarly 
say) there is no local difference. His proper space, time, 
mass and energy remain the same, but there is a shorten- 
ing of the lengths, and a lengthening of the time, and an 
increase of the mass and energy of the environment which 
appears to move past him. In general the kinetic charac- 
teristics of things are supposed to be merely apparent and 
are reversible with the shifting of frames of reference. 
Surely if Plato were living now he would insist on mathe- 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 289 


maticians like Hinstein, Eddington, and Bertrand Russell 
being banished from the state with other fabricators of 
new-fangled notions. 

The special theory of relativity seems simple when we 
take account merely of two frames in relative and parallel 
motion with reference to each other. In the case of the 
train and the embankment, visual appearance is indeed 
on the side of relativity. Who has not seen from the train 
window how the environment seems to rush to meet the 
train and the distortion of perspective which results from 
this apparent motion? But we meet with difficulties when 
we are to correlate the appearances of multiple apparent 
motions with each other. We might suppose in the simple 
relation of train and station that the station rushes to 
meet the train. But what if the trains appear to enter the 
station from, all possible directions at the same time? The 
station would have to hump itself to travel in opposite 
directions at the same time and also in transverse direc- 
tions. As a matter of convenience we assume that the 
station is at rest with reference to the trains entering the 
station. We can correlate the motions on the earth more 
simply by taking the earth as stationary with reference to 
them. For the same reason, we find the Copernican theory 
more acceptable than the Ptolemaic. We can correlate 
the motions of the planets more simply by treating the 
sun as stationary with reference to them, though in turn 
the sun is moving with reference to other stars in the 
galactic system. Some day we shall perhaps comprehend 
the law of the star-stream within our galactic world. 
In the meantime we shall believe that the hypothesis 
which affords the simpler explanation is also the truer 
explanation—nearer the constitution of things. To be 
sure our hypotheses are also involved in relativity and an 
hypothesis which seems to explain at one time may not 
explain always. Witness Newton’s law of gravitation. 
But such an hypothesis can always be taken up into a 
more comprehensive formula as an approximation. While 
it is superseded, it is not lost. In the meantime our insight 


290 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


into the vast constitution of things of which we are a 
part is decidedly relative. 

For Einstein the theory of relativity has no philosoph- 
ical significance. It is a mathematical device for predict- 
ing events and like other scientific devices is in danger of 
being upset by the first untoward fact. It is an artificial 
instrument and has nothing to do with the physical sig- 
nificance of time or motion. But Einstein’s British follow- 
ers have taken the special theory of relativity more seri- 
ously. Eddington” regards space and time as our 
“narochial frames,” as “subjective distortions” of reality, 
the absolute space-time whole. This attitude seems to be 
also that of Bertrand Russell.° The perspectives which 
are due to the relative motion of frames of reference, 2.e., 
the kinetic characteristics of shortened lengths, of length- 
ened intervals of time, increased mass and energy, are 
for them no intrinsic part of reality. They are mere 
appearances. Relativity of motion is taken to mean 
subjectivity of motion. Indeed if frames of refer- 
ence are equivalent and any frame of reference can be 
regarded as at rest or in motion at will, the subjectivity 
of motion seems to be implied. Motion can in that 
case make no physical or intrinsic difference to any 
frame of reference. But is the subjective interpretation 
inevitable? 

It seems to me that the subjectivists have started from 
the wrong end of the problem. What is real is what 
Whitehead calls the passing of nature. The Michelson 
experiment did not establish the relativity of motion, but 
the relativity of our judgements of motion. There are 
for us no absolute standards of space and time. Even the 
velocity of light, which the special theory of relativity 
has erected into an absolute, must be measured in terms 
of our empirical standards, our local space and time, 
whether it has an absolute rate or not. And the general 


* Article quoted above. Also his books, Space, Time and Gravitation 
and The Mathematical Theory of Relativity. 
* The A, B, C of Atoms, Chapter XIII. 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 291 


theory of relativity shows that there is no such absolute 
rate. Our perspectives are indeed relative to motion, but 
this does not mean that motion is relative. Motion is 
an absolute fact, in any case, whether it is our frame of 
reference which is moving or the frame of reference which 
we are observing in space-time perspective. The so-called 
“distortion” of perspective could not take place if it were 
not for motion. This is basic in the theory of relativity. 
The degree of “distortion” is dependent upon the velocity 
of motion, and therefore this velocity cannot be subjective. 
If velocity is objective, the increase of mass and the 
increase of energy, which are functions of the velocity of 
motion, must be objective. 

Motion is more fundamental than our judgements of 
relativity, because the latter depend upon the former. 
Our relative perspectives of motion presuppose plurality 
of frames of reference in motion with reference to each 
other. We cannot get rid of motion by shifting our point 
of view. Simultaneity and succession as physical facts 
are not created by our judgements of them. The passing 
of nature is an absolute fact. Velocity, kinetic mass, 
kinetic energy cannot be made less real by our space-time 
perspectives, though it is in perspective relations that we 
know them. The velocity of a moving body is not altered 
by our perspective relation to it, but the distribution 
between space and time is altered by our perspective. The 
train arrives at its destination on schedule whether we 
regard the train as moving to the station or the station 
as moving to meet the train. There is the passing of 
nature in either case, and this is real. The projectile hits 
the target with the same energy whether we conceive the 
projectile moving to hit the target or the target moving to 
meet the projectile. Whether a body is conceived to fall 
to the earth or the earth is conceived as rushing up to the 
body, the crash is the same. Our description of motion 
may be a matter of convenience, but not the passing of 
nature. We try to determine by the correlation of per- 
spectives of motion what is moving with reference to 


292 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


something else. This correlation is empirical and relative 
—subject to revision with further experience of motion. 
But everything in our world is moving. The passing of 
nature is an ultimate fact. 

The special theory of relativity suggests to Eddington 
Kant’s ideality of space and time. For Kant, space and 
time are forms of sensibility. They have no relevance 
to the real world. They are human perspectives, human 
ways of ordering the data of perception. In that sense 
they are subjective. But the relativity of Kant has noth- 
ing in common with the special theory of relativity. The 
space-time perspectives of the special theory of relativity 
are not relative to human nature but to bodies in motion 
with reference to each other. Presumably the camera 
would show the same “distortion” of perspective of events 
on other bodies moving with reference to the body upon 
which the camera is located. Local space and local time 
are not subjective, whatever their significance may be. 
On the other hand, the Kantian perspectives of space and 
time are not local; they do not vary with relative motion; 
they are universal, z.e., the same for all observers. The 
partitioning of velocity into space and time is absolute. 
In other words, Kant is a thorough-going Newtonian in 
his conception of space and time, even though he holds 
that they are relative to human nature. 

Finally the distinction which writers like Eddington 
and Russell make between intrinsic and extrinsic qualities 
—between proper time, space, mass, and energy on the one 
hand, and apparent time, space, mass, and energy, on the 
other—is itself a relative and arbitrary distinction. Why 
suppose that appearances of events taken account of on 
our local frame of reference are more real than the appear- 
ances of those events as taken account of from another 
frame of reference—the sun for example? At most the 
special theory would lead us to hold that all frames of 
reference are equivalent. But if we take the passing of 
nature as an absolute fact and if there is nothing station- 
ary, then the appearances resulting from motion are the 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 293 


real appearances, and those resulting from apparent rest 
are illusory. For nothing exists in isolation and nothing 
is at rest with reference to anything else. Everything 
from star to electron has a duration of its own. All our 
perceptions are due to motion in fact, even if we do not 
perceive the motions. Hence all appearances are appear- 
ances of motion and all qualify reality. There are no 
privileged appearances. All we can do and need to do 
is to state the conditions of the appearances. ‘This is a 
more complex affair than the special theory with its 
assumption of isolated motions can account for, since the 
special theory ignores the medium in which the appear- 
ances occur. 

The special theory of relativity is a half-way house at 
best. We cannot stop there. It is presumably based on 
the Michelson-Morley experiment. This experiment shows 
that we cannot measure the motion of the earth with ref- 
erence to the ether and therefore that our measures are 
relative to the frame of reference of the observer. There is 
no privileged frame of reference: all frames of reference 
are equally valid for purposes of measurement. This is a 
different matter from holding that motion is relative to 
the observer. Our space-time perspectives are relative, 
but they are not subjective. So far we must agree with 
the special theory of relativity. But the constancy of 
hght assumed in the special theory is fictitious. Light 
varies in the neighbourhood of matter and, therefore, in 
the neighbourhood of our earth, even though our instru- 
ments as yet cannot detect this variation. The variation 
in the neighbourhood of the sun has been established by 
observation as well as mathematics. The earth itself is a 
rotational field and therefore non-Euclidian. This fact 
can be established by Foucault’s pendulum and other 
means, independently of our knowledge of other moving 
bodies. The special theory therefore is not merely para- 
doxical, but it is an abstraction, a fiction which cannot be 
shown to have relevance to the actual world of motion. 
As Einstein himself puts it: 


294 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


Space-time regions of finite extent are in general 
not Newtonian so that a gravitational field cannot be 
done away with by any choice of co-ordinates in a 
finite region. There is, therefore, no choice of co-or- 
dinates for which the metrical relations of the special 
theory of relativity hold in a finite region. But this 
invariant, ds, always exists for the neighbouring 
points (events) of the continuum. This invariant ds 
may be expressed in arbitrary co-ordinates.’ 


This, however, is merely an artificial device. We know of 
an increasing number of events which follow the finite 
quanta type, but we have no evidence that any events are 
of the infinitesimal order. 


The General Theory of Relativity 

In dealing with uniformly moving fields and their rela- 
tion to each other, we have been able to make use of 
Euclidian geometry with its straight lines and straight 
co-ordinates. By using the velocity of light as a constant 
we have been able to translate the quantities of relatively 
moving fields into terms of our own frame of reference. 
But when we have non-uniform motion, as in the neigh- 
bourhood of a large body of matter, or in a rotational 
field, or in a field of unequal distribution of heat, we 
cannot use our Euclidian geometry. Light rays bend in 
the neighbourhood of large bodies like the sun. Their 
velocity is thus retarded and we can no longer use light 
as a constant for our comparisons. We have launched on 
the sea of general relativity where our compass itself is ~ 
subject to variation in relation to the field in which we 
travel. It is hazardous to try to make Einstein’s theory of 
general relativity clear in ordinary language. And after 
our best efforts we have no doubt that many will say with 
the countryman who was looking at the giraffe at the 
circus: “There ain’t no such animal.” We can at any 
rate sympathize with the perplexity of the students of 
Cambridge as expressed in their doggerel: 

*The Meaning of Relativity, p. 71. 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 295 


We thought that lines were straight and Euclid true. 
God said: “Let Einstein be,” and all’s askew. 
But this may not be the fault of Einstein. 

The general theory of relativity deals with more con- 
crete conditions of motion than the special theory. Things, 
including light, do not, within our ordinary observation, 
move in a vacuum. They move through media and 
amongst interfering energies. We cannot, therefore, deter- 
mine motion purely in terms of perspectives of space 
and time or their combination. We have to take into 
account empirical fields with their determinants. The 
determinants are veiled by Einstein in the geometrical 
structure. We therefore have to abandon our images of 
fields of force and other material aids and substitute geo- 
metrical fields. If this is geometrizing reality, we must 
remember that, after all, what counts in Newtonian science 
is differential equations. And we are as ignorant of gravi- 
tation and fields of force as Newton was. It would be a 
mistake, however, to suppose that Einstein’s theory is 
purely mathematics. It is with the physical structure of 
the world that he is concerned. The question is merely 
of the simplest way of predicting events. In spite of our 
ignorance of the internal relations of nature, of the real 
transitions between events, we can group our observations 
mathematically and make them useful. 

For mathematical purposes we can simplify our terms. 
We can treat gravitational mass as inertia, since all bodies 
fall with the same velocity in a vacuum, irrespective of 
their texture, size, etc. Gravitation can be treated as 
acceleration, since that is the pragmatic significance of 
gravitation. When we are riding on a train and are sud- 
denly jerked forward we can attribute the effect to our 
entering a gravitational field. Moreover, quasi-gravita- 
tional fields can be artificially produced by rotation. 
Mathematically the equations are the same. To be sure 
that doesn’t explain gravitation; but at any rate our 
ignorance has been effectively exposed. Since all variation 
In space position is variation in time position—i.e., in our 


296 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


clocks—motion is really four dimensional. “Every phys- 
ical description resolves itself into a number of state- 
ments, each of which refers to the space-time coincidence 
of two events, A and B.”* What we do when we try to 
describe the motion of a material particle relative to a 
body of reference is to state the encounter of this particle 
with particular points of a reference body, including the 
corresponding values of the time, the encounters with our 
clocks. For this purpose we must make the assumption 
that ‘the two lines which represent the motions of the 
points in question have a particular system of co-ordinate 
values in common.” ° Otherwise our values would not be 
measurable in terms of each other. 

As in the special form of relativity, or the geometry of 
uniform motion, so here we presuppose plurality of 
motions. On either theory, our judgements of motion are 
relative. We select our reference frame to which the 
perspective appearances of any motion must be correlated. 
But we no longer assume a constant, independent of our 
reference frame and the motions observed. We cannot 
assume the constancy of light, for the velocity of light 
varies in the neighbourhood of matter. In the absence of 
an absolute measure we must get along with relative meas- 
ures, taken from a selected frame of reference. Einstein 
expresses the variations of nature in terms of a geometrical 
structure. But to this end he needs a new type of geom- 
etry. Rectilinear Newtonian reference frames with their 
implications of rigid units of length and constant units of 
time are no longer available. The geometry employed is 
that of Gauss, which enables him to deal with fields of 
non-uniform structure such as that of gravitation. This 
is spoken of as the geometry of curved space. This means 
merely that the variations are no longer statable in Euclid- 
ian terms. 

In order to get a Gaussian field of geometry we resort to 
the device of dividing our field by two sets of lines which 


° Einstein, Relativity, p. 95. 
® Ibid, 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 297 


are so drawn that the lines within each set do not meet. 
but the two sets intersect each other, like the lines of 
latitude and longitude on a map. What concerns us, how- 
ever, are not the lines but their intersection points. We 
assign to every intersection four numbers, one for each 
of the co-ordinates of space and one for the co-ordinate 
of time. These numbers have “not the least direct phys- 
ical significance, but only serve the purpose of numbering 
the points of the continuum in a definite but arbitrary 
manner.” * Since time is assigned a numerical value, 
there is no need of distinguishing the time-co-ordinate 
from the space-co-ordinates. The appearance of a material 
point-particle or a flash of light at one of these junctions 
of space and time is an event. Were nature timeless, 2.e., 
without duration, the perspective at an instant, with its 
numerical values, would be sufficient.” But since a particle 
has duration, its existence, according to the theory of rela- 
tivity, 
must be characterized by an infinitely large number 
of systems of values, the co-ordinate values of which 
are so close as to give continuity. Corresponding to 
the material point, we have thus a (unidimensional) 
line in the four-dimensional continuum. In the same 
way, any such lines in our continuum correspond to 
many points in motion. The only statements having 
regard to these points which can claim a physical 
existence are in reality the statements about their 
encounters. In our mathematical treatment, such an 
encounter 1s expressed in the fact that the lines which 
represent the motions of the points in question have 
a particular system of co-ordinate values, x, Xs, Xs, X4, 
in common.” 


7 A. Einstein, Relativity, p. 94. 

®* That time is the characteristic of reality which makes it necessary 
for us to make new judgements or statements in order to define the 
real was emphasized by the present writer as far back as his unpublished 
doctor’s thesis at Harvard in 1899 on The Concept of Time. It is 
expressed in Time and Reality, 1904, and A Realistic Universe, 1916, 
Part IV. 

® Einstein, zbid., pp. 94, 95. 


298 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


We do not have to worry about any absolute standard of 
measurement. The important thing 1s that our space 
measures and our clock intervals can be taken as the same 
within our frame of reference. We can then make our 
statements about the space-time coincidence of any two 
events under consideration, which is what physical descrip- 
tion means. 

Einstein assumes that indefinitely small distances in 
our non-Euclidian field can be treated as Euclidian. That 
means that if two motions effect a junction in a certain 
intersection they will also be coincident at a point indefi- 
nitely near. Different moving particles appearing at dif- 
ferent points within the uniform block can have their 
position indicated by adding an indefinitely small numeri- 
cal index to the co-ordinate values. Any space-time chunk 
is equally available as a frame of reference. Treating an 
indefinitely small non-Euclidian distance as uniform is 
of course a pragmatic device, like treating a circle as if it 
were made up of an infinite number of straight lines. Such 
an indefinitely small chunk of space-time values, Einstein 
calls, picturesquely, a mollusc. Within such a molluse we 
have Euclidian congruence. 

From molluse to mollusc the values of the space-time 
co-ordinates change. We can only add and subtract values 
within the uniform space-time block, because we can only 
add and subtract the same type values. As we cannot add 
red and blue, so we cannot add different types of geometri- 
cal structure. They are non-integrable. 

Let us try now to understand the meaning of the theory 
of relativity in the concrete. It is not correct to speak of 
motion in space-time though we can speak of motion in 
space. Motion is the appearance of a point-particle or a 
point-flash in an order of junctures of space-time, 7.e., the 
particle or flash appears with its four numbers—its three 
space numbers which give its position in space and its 
clock-time number or date. From molluse to molluse there 
is a difference in all the numerical values. The intersec- 
tions are ordered in a definite but arbitrary manner; arbi- 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 299 


trary because the numbering may start from any inter- 
section of space and time. Two intersections within the 
same mollusc, 7.e., indefinitely near, have the same co-ordi- 
nates. We can treat their relation as Euclidian. The 
important point here is that the perspectives from different 
molluses have different numerical values. The survey of 
motion, then, is the survey of a four-dimensional numeri- 
cal order. The journey of a traveller appears as a series 
of junctures of space-time, with different number tags. 
It is as though nature at each chunk had settled into a 
different mould. The order is determined by the guiding 
field—in the case of the gravitational field, by the mass 
of matter, which, of course, must be ascertained for each 
body of matter. We cannot predict the curvature of light 
in the immediate neighbourhood of a body of matter like 
the sun, unless we know its mass. It is matter or energy, 
then, which determines the specific geometrical structure. 

But the imagination of the amateur like myself needs 
something more concrete in order to visualize this Gaus- 
sian geometry with its “curved space.” Einstein’s happy 
illustration of a marble slab resting on a lattice of metal 
rods may help us. The advantage of this illustration is 
that we start with Euclidian space. The metal lattice is 
supposed to be built up of tiny rods, each one perfectly 
rigid and straight and of the same length, having been 
standardized by the superposition of the same metal rod. 
These rods are built into little squares and together they 
support the whole Euclidian marble slab. Now suppose 
you heat the marble slab in the center. The heat is com- 
municated to the metal framework unequally, so that the 
rods in the center are heated most and those at the circum- 
ference not at all. The result is that the form of the metal 
lattice is literally twisted. The figures are no longer 
Euclidian squares and we can no longer use our little 
Euclidian measuring rod by means of which all the little 
rods of the lattice had been standardized previous to the 
heating. The geometrical structure of the metal lattice has 
undergone a change. The factor of time has been intro- 


300 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


duced into the structure and it is now four-dimensional. 
While we can no longer use Euclidian geometry, we can use 
Gaussian geometry and proceed to give numerical values 
to our intersections as above described. The guiding field 
in this case is furnished by the constant source of heat, 
with its manner of distribution, which must, of course, be 
known. Other complications we may ignore for our pur- 
pose. The value of the marble slab in the experiment is 
that it may be supposed to retain practically its Kuclidian 
structure, and thus furnishes a contrast. 

An illustration often used is that of locating a house in 
a city by its number. It does illustrate the idea of numeri- 
cal relations. The intersections would, of course, have to 
be increased indefinitely. Each house with its relations 
would constitute an event and to conform to the previous 
Gaussian scheme would have to be shrunk to the proper 
proportions in order to be described by means of an infini- 
tesimal calculus, though this is a matter of method, since 
we might use a finite calculus with any size entities. But 
this is not the serious defect in the illustration. Our city 
plot is a Euclidian scheme like our original metal lattice. 
How can we convert this into a Gaussian scheme which, of 
course, it really is to an observer from a frame of reference 
outside the earth? We must conceive our city in motion. 
This must not be uniform motion, because in that case our 
Newtonian conception of units could still be supposed to 
hold and we should still have Euclidian geometry, as in 
the special theory of relativity where everything on the 
reference frame is supposed to persist according to New- 
ton’s first law of motion. We must, therefore, have non- 
uniform motion or change in velocity. We will suppose 
that our city is moving for some unknown reason through 
a medium of increasing density. The structure of the city 
will no longer be Euclidian. But we can locate the inter- 
sections with reference to each other on the basis of their 
numbers according to the Gaussian scheme of four number 
co-ordinates, and you will see the houses at various inter- 
sections with their space and time tags. To an observer 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 301 


in the sun our actual city plots would be Gaussian, since 
to him our earth is a rotational system in motion round the 
sun. 

But we do not have to go so far afield. We can get an 
illustration of Gaussian relativity in the domain of eco- 
nomic values. It is well to remember that the actual world 
has a Gaussian structure. It is the Euclidian or Newtonian 
conception which is artificial. In Germany, Einstein’s 
theory is sometimes referred to as the merchant theory, 
perhaps with a squint at the Hebrew origin of the author. 
In buying and selling, the merchant has no absolute frame 
of reference. No one supposes any longer that there is an 
absolute cost price. The purpose of the merchant is to buy 
goods as he can; and, whatever the buying price, he adds 
a certain percentage for profit and thus determines the 
selling price. There may be certain finite periodicities of 
varying length in the fluctuations of prices. The economist 
tries with more or less success to discover certain factors 
which constitute the guiding field in the fluctuations, and 
which, if he could define them, would enable him from his 
arbitrary vantage point to establish a certain order in the 
fluctuations. But this ordering is relative. Economics 
knows of no absolute values. In the economic world we 
strive as best we can to make our readjustment from finite 
chunk to finite chunk. There are certain complications 
for the merchant, for example, in having goods left over 
from chunk to chunk in the readjustment of the economic 
co-ordinates. If the merchant has a stock left over and 
cost prices in the market rise, the merchant gains because 
he marks up his goods. If prices fall, he sells as he can and 
may go under in the readjustment. But we shall leave the 
merchant to sink or swim, as he can, in the fluctuations. 

The problem of a monetary standard of exchange illus- 
trates the theory of relativity in a concrete form. The 
Occidental nations for the most part have a monetary 
standard based upon gold, the unit of exchange being arbi- 
trarily fixed in the various states. But gold itself does not 
have an absolute economic value: it fluctuates in value 


302 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


with reference to the commodities it will buy. Gold is 
itself a commodity depending upon the law of supply and 
demand, though the value of gold is in part due to the 
demand for it as a standard of exchange which implies a 
circle. At best, gold is a relative standard. But, so far, the 
great commercial nations have found it convenient to use 
gold as the basis of exchange. The difficulty, however, 
following the European war, 1914-1918, is not so much the 
fluctuation of the gold basis of currencies, though this is 
fluctuating, as the fluctuation of the currencies of various 
countries with reference to gold. At the present time 
(1924) the currency of most of the European countries is 
far below par as compared with the pre-war ratios. The 
rate of depreciation, moreover, varies greatly in different 
states, complicating very much the problem of exchange. 
The question is what can be done to establish a practical 
basis of exchange? Some insist that this can be done only 
when the pre-war ratio of currencies of the various coun- 
tries with reference to gold is re-established. This is pat- 
ently impossible at present. The sanest solution is to 
stabilize, if possible, the present relative values of cur- 
rencies in terms of gold. These ratios would then become 
the norm for the period of stability which, of course, is 
very finite. This would give exchange an opportunity to 
adjust itself and business could be done in a normal way. 
It is not the particular ratio of a certain currency to a 
gold basis that is important for business, but the stability 
of the ratio. Once the ratio is stable, international prices 
can be adjusted in terms of common economic co-ordinates 
with reference to gold, even though the basis itself fluc- 
tuates from time to time. Within certain finite chunks of 
life, it must be possible for us to have common co-ordi- 
nates, z.€., a common numerical unit of value, if we are 
not to have utter confusion in the exchange of values. We 
can see now in terms of economics what Einstein means 
when he says that motions, to be calculated in terms of 
each other, must be within a certain chunk or mollusc 
where the co-ordinates are the same. Otherwise we have 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY _ 303 


no basis of comparison. The values change from chunk to 
chunk but within each chunk there are common ratios. We 
are fortunate if we can discover a guiding field like gravi- 
tation which gives us an order of chunks. 

Professor A. N. Whitehead’s statement of the theory of 
relativity is more philosophical than that of Einstein. He 
is careful first of all to define his terms and in this has 
performed an invaluable service to science and philosophy 
alike. He starts with the continuous duration of nature. 
This continuous duration has the characteristic of exten- 
sion in space and time, 2.e., spaces include spaces and times 
include times in the universal flow. Extension in time we 
call duration. For purposes of knowledge we must dis- 
criminate within the continuous duration of nature. For 
ordinary purposes we select concrete finite chunks within 
this duration, such as iron and other common-sense things. 
Such chunks have extension in space and duration in 
time. To such chunks Whitehead applies the term events. 
But science cannot be satisfied with such gross units. 
Hence the method of extensive abstraction. We conceive 
the chunks of extension, whether spatial or temporal, as 
made up of smaller units like boxes within boxes. We pro- 
ceed with this process of abstraction until we reach a zero 
of extension or a point and a zero of duration or an instant. 
Since motion implies both space and time we have point- 
instants. 

But events are not resolvable into space-time. They are 
physical events; and we must take account of their phys- 
ical characteristics as well as their space-time relations. 
We can single out or abstract from events such characters 
as the sense quality blue, when we speak of a blue star. 
But while this description in terms of characters may 
serve ordinary practical purposes, it is not adequate for 
the purposes of science which requires such non-sensuous 
objects as molecules, atoms, and electrons. 

The electron is the simplest unit known to science. 
Hence it would seem that the simplest event must be an 
electron at a point-instant. But here there is difficulty. 


304 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


The extensive abstraction of matter must keep pace with 
the abstractions of space and time. Now a point is not 
even an infinitesimal extension and an instant is not even 
an infinitesimal duration. A point is zero extension and 
an instant is zero duration. But how can an electron which 
is a finite quantum occupy a zero point and a zero instant? 
If an electron were a Leibnitzian monad, 2.e., a soul, it 
could occupy zero space, but even then it could not occupy 
zero duration, since a monad is a historic continuum. 
Hence in order to satisfy Professor Whitehead’s require- 
ments of extensive abstraction, matter must be treated as 
infinitely divisible and we arrive at a physical point. Such 
a point with its space and time relations is an event- 
particle. 


Each event particle is as much an instant of time as 
it is a point in space. I have called it an instantaneous 
point-flash. Thus in the structure of this space-time 
manifold space is not finally discriminated from time, 
and the possibility remains open for diverse modes of 
discrimination according to the diverse circumstances 
of observers. It is this possibility which makes the 
fundamental distinction between the new way of con- 
ceiving the universe and the old way.”” 


Professor Whitehead does not mask the physical in the 
geometric structure to the extent that Einstein does. A 
variation in the geometric structure of the field of gravi- 
tation implies to him a variation in gravitational impetus. 
The practical congruence of motions over indefinitely 
small distances, or in other words the Euclidian character 
of an infinitesimal mollusc, can be translated into more 
familiar physical terminology by saying that “the integral 
impetus is stationary for an infinitesimal displacement,” ** 
which amounts to the same thing; and as we know nothing 
about the physical impetus of gravitation, it is merely a 
question of terminology whether we speak of a change of 


*° The Concept of Nature, p. 173. 
** [bid., p. 188. See also his The Principles of Natural Knowledge 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 305 


impetus or a change of geometrical structure. It is, in any 
case, the latter, so far as our measurements are concerned. 
Since congruence presupposes motion in a world where 
everything is moving, we must take care that the coinci- 
dence implied in measurement is a coincidence not merely 
in the dimensions of space, but in the dimension of time. 
Our quantitative units apparently vary with space-time 
perspectives. Therefore we must be sure that the time is 
the same as well as the lengths. It is, therefore, that the 
measurements of science have been based upon the con- 
ception of nature at an instant. 

It is no indictment of the new theory of relativity to 
say that it is abstract and artificial. It aims as a matter 
of fact to come nearer to the constitution of things than 
the Newtonian conception of nature, of which, as Einstein 
modestly puts it, it is a “correction.” Uniform motion, 
with its constant units, may be treated as a limiting con- 
ception to a world of varying physical curvature. Thus 
the Newtonian conception has its place in the general 
mathematical frame into which Einstein and Whitehead 
would fit nature. For practical purposes we may regard 
the Newtonian conception as a first approximation which 
has only needed correction because of recently discovered 
facts. It is quite possible that, in spite of the logical 
elegance and generality of the new theory, science may 
continue to use the simple Newtonian formule where they 
are applicable and introduce corrections for practical pur- 
poses only in the few cases where the older conception 
fails to work. This would make the general theory of 
relativity largely a theoretical ideal of science, but none 
the less important for the truer understanding of nature. 
Even though for certain abstract physical purposes we 
may be able to proceed in our measurement on the basis of 
the conception of nature at an instant, 7.e., to disregard 
the temporal aspect, we now know that this arbitrary 
method has owed its apparent validity only to the fact 
that the motions we have dealt with have been too slow 
to make any observable difference to our measurements. 


306 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


Only recently have we been able to demonstrate the effect 
of matter on the geometry of motion in the case of light. 
The revolution which has come with the discovery that 
time is an essential characteristic of this our seemingly so 
solid world, and that there can be no true measurement of 
physical quantities which does not take account of motion, 
is a permanent and momentous step in our approximation 
to reality. Hereafter our conception of even the most 
stereotyped portion of reality, that of physics and astron- 
omy, must be that of a space-time four-dimensional mani- 
fold, whose apparent rigidity is due to the limitation of 
our faculties. The crust of dogmatism has been broken 
where it seemed impenetrable. 

But, when all is said, the method of approach is still 
highly artificial. The theory of relativity was invented 
for a certain limited purpose. It is essentially an instru- 
ment of prediction in the physical realm of nature. Its 
metaphysical import has been no business of its early pro- 
moters. Einstein expressly disclaims any competence to 
deal with real space, real time, or the real world. He is 
dealing with certain quantitative measurements—with 
lengths and time intervals. And his interest lies in show- 
ing that we cannot ignore time in making our measure- 
ments, for these vary with space-time perspectives. For 
his abstract purposes of mathematical calculation, he 
admits that he is obliged to ignore “the physical signifi- 
cance of time.” For the purposes of mathematical order, 
time becomes only one of four geometrical dimensions, 
interchangeable with the others. The real significance of 
past, present, and future disappears. Instead we have a 
four dimensional frame-work of order series. The empiri- 
cal constants which determine the specific order of curva- 
ture would, of course, vary with different fields of human 
experience. But some empirical constant, whether matter 
or some other constant, we must have if we are to make 
predictions in the empirical world. No theory enables us 
to make predictions a priori about empirical facts. The 
tendency of Einstein and his followers has been to mask 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 307 


the empirical constants by treating them as part of the 
geometrical structure instead of as determinants of this 
structure. But it is physical relations, and not space, with 
which we are directly concerned in the theory of relativity. 


Mathematics and Reality 

The theory of relativity raises the whole question of the 
relation of mathematics to the real world. Einstein and 
Whitehead both assume the validity of the mathematical 
concepts of continuity and infinity, which have played 
such a large part in modern physical description ever since 
the invention of the differential calculus. They belong to 
the scientific method of the Newtonian era to which we 
owe the foundations of the physical sciences. But like the 
Newtonian concepts of time and space, they are purely 
artificial concepts. We have no evidence that nature ever 
has the constitution symbolized by the concepts of con- 
tinuity and infinity. That nature makes no leaps is one of 
those a priori dicta, like nature abhors a vacuum, which 
we have come to distrust. So long as there was no evidence 
to the contrary, the Newtonian framework of science nat- 
urally compelled conviction. But we have seen how the 
conception of absolute space-units and time-units was 
shattered by the Michelson-Morley experiment. The evi- 
dence against the physical validity of the concepts of 
infinite divisibility and continuity is conclusive in increas- 
ing domains of science; and it is possible that, as our 
knowledge of the constitution of the real world increases, 
we may have to substitute a finite calculus for the infini- 
tesimal calculus throughout the domain of science. At any 
rate, the infinitesimal calculus has a purely instrumental 
significance at the present time. 

The first definite establishing of the quantum theory 
was in the relation of stimulus to sense perception. Accord- 
ing to the theory of Leibnitz the law of continuity holds 
for this relation: infinitely small stimuli are supposed to 
give rise to infinitely small perceptions which, however, are 
conceived as unconscious. Our perception of the roar of 


308 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the sea is due to the fusion of an infinite number of these 
“small perceptions.” But Weber showed that a stimulus 
must reach a finite amount to be perceived at all. Below 
this amount there is no perception. The amount must be 
ascertained for each sense domain. It varies with inter- 
ference and with motion. For each sense—pressure, tem- 
perature, sound, ete., there is a minimum sensible. That 
is what Fechner calls the law of the threshold. Further- 
more, in order to perceive a difference in the stimulus, 2.e., 
a more intense sensation, there must be an increase by a 
definite finite fraction of the stimulus with which the com- 
parison is made. This again must be ascertained for each 
type of sensation, and it also varies with the range of the 
stimulus. Fechner has stated this relation in a formula to 
the effect that the stimulus increases according to 
geometrical progression, while the sensation increases in 
arithmetical progression. This formula has, in view of the 
facts, only limited significance. What is significant for us 
is that in the interaction of the organism with the energies 
of the environment, these energies must increase by a 
certain finite amount for the inertia of the organism to be 
overcome and the stimulus sensed. 

The theory of quanta has been carried by Planck into 
the domain of physics with revolutionary effect. It was 
first demonstrated, in the case of the radiation of heat, 
that the pulses are of a definite finite amount. The theory 
has since been proved for all radiant energies. When mat- 
ter is acted upon by radiant energy it must either take 
“a whole gulp” (as Eddington puts it) or none at all. The 
theory has recently been confirmed in the field of spectral 
analysis. The brilliant investigations by J. J. Thomson, 
Rutherford, Millikan, Bohr, etc., into the constitution of 
matter have destroyed the assumption of the infinite divisi- 
bility of matter. They show that the constitution of mat- 
ter is granular. The theory that matter is atomic goes 
back to Leucippus and Democritus, but modern chemistry 
dates it back to Dalton. It is fundamental in modern 
physical theory. At the end of the nineteenth century 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 309 


there was a tendency to regard the atom as a convenient 
fiction. But the twentieth century has furnished indubi- 
table experimental proof of the existence of the atom. The 
atom of Dalton is no longer, however, regarded as the 
ultimate unit of matter. It is rather a holding company, 
an organization of tremendous complexity. The atom is at 
present regarded as a planetary system with its positive 
nucleus and its satellites, the negative electrons, moving 
within definite orbits. There has come into being an 
astronomy of the atom as a counterpart to the astronomy 
of the heavens. Some of these orbits are circular and some 
are elliptic. By introducing suitable corrections, based 
upon Ejinstein’s theory that mass increases with velocity, 
Millikan has been able to predict with accuracy the eclipses 
within this miniature planetary system. The centre of 
interest in the new theory is the orbits rather than the 
moving particles. The relations of these orbits have been 
found to follow a finite quantum law. We are in the 
morning of a revolution in scientific theory, more radical 
even than the theory of relativity, for this still retains the 
methods of Newtonian mathematics. 

There are two branches of mathematics, counting and 
measuring—numbers and geometry. The incommensura- 
bility of these two branches was the scandal of the Pythag- 
oreans, though modern mathematics has made an heroic 
effort to bridge the gap through its conception of dense 
series, introducing grades of infinities of irrational num- 
bers to close the gaps of the rational numbers and thus 
attempting to efface the distinction between arithmetic 
and geometry. But we shall use the distinction between 
numbers and geometry in the original sense, for it is with 
rational numbers that the quantum theory is concerned. 
Geometry with its kindred science, the calculus, is based 
upon the theory of the mathematical continuum, and this 
has furnished the model for modern science. The present 
revolution is toward the substitution of finite numbers for 
the continuity of the differential calculus. ‘““We have been 
taught that an integration of the infinitesimal elements of 


310 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


a continuum may be approximately replaced by a sum- 
mation of finite terms, but that the former method 1s 
exact and absolute, while the second gives but an approxi- 
mation. Are we not going to be obliged to reverse this 
decision and to recognize that the branch of mathematics 
which will come nearest to meeting the needs of science 
will be the theory of numbers, rather than the theory of 
extension, and that measuring must be replaced by 
counting?” ** 

This does not mean that as a matter of method the 
description in terms of the infinitesimal calculus will be 
superseded all at once. Its pragmatic usefulness in many 
fields is undoubted, and the scientific results of genera- 
tions are embodied in this method. But it means, at any 
rate, that the metaphysical interpretation will be different. 
The infinitesimal calculus has, as a matter of fact, been 
used successfully in many fields which we know to be 
discrete. To quote Lewis’ brilliant statement: 


The mathematics of hydrodynamics is based on the 
theory of the continuum. It is admirably suited to 
express the behaviour of substances like water and air. 
Nevertheless the method is entirely an approximate 
one, for water and air are not continuous but are com- 
posed of discrete molecules. Hydrodynamics could 
not account for such a phenomenon as the Brownian 
movement. 

The methods of hydrodynamics were taken over 
into the field equations of electromagnetics. An 
electrostatic field, regarded as a continuum, is defined 
by the force exerted upon an infinitesimal test charge 
placed within it. But an infinitesimal test charge is a 
concept which we can no longer hold. The smallest 
charge is the charge upon a single electron, and if we 
use the electron as a test charge to determine the 
properties of the simplest possible electric field, 
namely, the field about a hydrogen nucleus, we 


*? Valence and the Structure of Atoms, G. N. Lewis, p. 163. The 
following quotations from Lewis are from the same work, pp. 163-165. 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 311 


appear to find that this field is not a continuum but 
is strikingly discontinuous. As far as we are aware, 
the electron cannot exist except in one of a series of 
levels... . As far as we can see, it disappears from 
one level and appears at another. 


We state the relations of these levels in integral numbers. 
We say that the distance between the first and third levels 
is 2, and the difference between the first and the seventh 
levels is 6. 


Granting that the “field” about a positive particle 
has at least some elements of discontinuity, and that 
perhaps this may be true also of the field about the 
electron (provided that these two ideas are distin- 
guishable), then since every electric field is a resultant 
of the fields of these elementary particles, every elec- 
tric field must have properties of discontinuity. Instead 
of thinking then of an electric field as a continuum, we 
should regard it rather as an intensely complicated 
mesh composed of all the discontinuous elements due 
to the single elementary particles. Even if this view 
is correct we need not for ordinary purposes hesitate 
to use the equations of Maxwell any more than we 
hesitate to employ the inexact methods of hydro- 
dynamics in ordinary problems. 

An observer, moving rapidly past an electrostatic 
field, finds that it is also a magnetic field, and if the 
electric field is discontinuous, so is the magnetic. We 
need not abandon the brilliant idea of Maxwell that 
light is an electromagnetic phenomenon, nor need we 
doubt the approximate validity of his equations of 
propagation of electromagnetic waves, provided that 
we consider them to have merely statistical value. 
But when we consider the light emitted not from a 
creat ageregate of atoms but from a single atom, we 
may be sure that this is something very different from 
that which is assumed in the undulatory or electro- 
magnetic theory. It probably bears to the electromag- 


312 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


netic wave a similar relation to that between a mole- 
cule of water and a quart of water.*” 


We know that when an electron shifts its orbit with 
reference to the nucleus it shifts by a finite quantum. It 
may under outer bombardment or inner stress shift from 
an inner orbit to an orbit farther from the nucleus. In this 
case the atom gains or absorbs energy. Or the shift may 
be from an outer orbit to an orbit nearer the nucleus. In 
this case the atom loses energy and the radiations are 
produced which give us our spectral bands, whether from 
atoms in our laboratories or in distant stars. The shifts in 
either case are determined by a law of equilibrium and 
happen in finite quanta. 


A fundamental postulate of modern atomic theory is 
that an electron may not permanently revolve at any 
distance it pleases from the nucleus, but that there 
are certain prescribed distances called energy levels, 
any one of which it may occupy, while the intervening 
spaces are zones of instability. In them no electron 
may remain; through them it may pass, but as rapidly 
as possible and without a stopover.** 


It does not seem possible that the shift from one orbit 
to another can be instantaneous if the electron is a real 
entity as experimental evidence confirms. So minute, how- 
ever, are the distances in the atom to our gross senses that 
they are practically instantaneous. 

If we could find the same phenomenon within the slow- 
moving pictures of the macrocosm with which astronomy 
deals, it would both aid our imagination and confirm fur- 
ther the results established in the microcosm. Astronomy 
seems to have an analogue to the energy levels of the atom 
in our solar system, viz., in the rings of Saturn and in the 
distribution of asteroids. 


The rings of Saturn are known to consist of a mul- 
titude of discrete particles, each revolving like a 


**“The Master Key,” by Dr. Paul R. Heyl, the Scientific Monthly, 
A'Zc) a>. @ BD. Can oon! B 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 313 


miniature satellite in the periodic time proper for its 
distance from Saturn. This ring system contains 
several divisions, or blank spaces, in which no par- 
ticles are visible. Also, the inner portion of the ring 
system, known as the erépe ring is much fainter and 
more shadowy than the outer portion. In it the par- 
ticles are evidently much more sparsely distributed. 
It has been known for a long time that these divisions 
occur at approximately those distances at which a 
particle would have a time of revolution commensur- 
able with that of one or another of Saturn’s satellites, 
all of which lie outside the ring system. .. . The 
same condition obtains in the system of asteroids 
which is found in the region between Mars and Jupi- 
ter. There are known something like 900 of these 
bodies, a number large enough to allow the law of 
probability free play in their distribution; yet it is a 
fact that in those regions where the periodic time of 
an asteroid would be commensurable with that of 
Jupiter few or no asteroids are found.** 


In the planetary system of the atom we must look pri- 
marily inward to the nucleus for “the cause of the zones 
of instability,’ while in the solar system we must look 
outward for the cause (though in each case we must doubt- 
less look to the total distribution of matter and energy in 
the neighbourhood). But may not the cause for the insta- 
bility of certain zones be the same in the two cases? Dr. 
Hey] offers this suggestion: 


If there is something about the nucleus which pro- 
duces a field of force which is slightly asymmetric or 
directive, and if this asymmetry rotates with a certain 
period, then we may exvect a cumulative perturbation 
to be exerted upon such electrons as possess a periodic 
time commensurable with the nuclear period.** 


Whatever be the cause of the instability of certain zones, 


oe LOM. pp Lonand) 11; 
SOU Deals 


314 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the fact is that the energy field in each case has a finite 
quantum structure. The physical space in each case is not 
Euclidian but asymmetrical and directive. Nor does it 
conform to the theory of general relativity, since there is 
an actual stratification in finite quanta. It may yet be 
true that the passing from one finite zone to another is 
continuous, but the emphasis in present theory is on the 
orbits and their numerical relations, which are finite. This 
is all we can assert at present. 

You may ask why I devote so much space to certain 
physical facts that seem indeed far enough removed from 
metaphysics as traditionally conceived. My answer is that 
metaphysics as I understand it deals with the constitution 
of the real world as revealed in human experience. And 
recent discoveries in science affect our general conceptions 
of events in nature, including ourselves as parts of nature. 
Events in nature have the attributes of energy, time, and 
space. If the events in nature happen in finite chunks, 
then we must readjust our conceptions of energy, time, 
and space. As Lewis says: 


The recognition that electric and magnetic fields are 
essentially discontinuous leads us to suspect that 
there is no such thing as a continuous field of force; 
that a gradual acceleration accompanied by a gradual 
increase in kinetic energy is something which does not 
exist in nature. Rather we should consider that every 
system passes by steps, which may be small but are 
nevertheless finite, from one energy state to another. 


But 1f energy comes in finite throbs then the space-time 
intervals of events must also be finite, for they are deter- 
mined by the structure of the field in which they recur. 
The passing of nature must be represented by finite inte- 
gral numbers, in a definite order determined by nature. 
The structure of space as a whole must be regarded as 
determined by matter or energy concentration. “General 
space,’ as Lewis says, 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 315 


might be regarded as the composite of all the spaces 
of all the atoms, and in this space we could employ 
the ideas of extension, of distance, and the like, which 
are used in Euclidian geometry, with the same sort of 
approximate validity as we employ the principles 
of hydrodynamics to a system containing a large num- 
ber of molecules, or the principles of electro-magnetics 
to a field generated by many elementary charges. 


Einstein’s general theory of relativity emphasizes that 
the geometric structure of physical space is determined by 
matter. In this respect he is in sympathy with Mach: 


Mach’s ether not only conditions the behaviour of 
inert masses, but is also conditioned in its state by 
them. Mach’s idea finds its full development in the 
ether of the general relativity. According to this the- 
ory the metrical qualities of the continuum of space- 
time differ in the environment of different points of 
space-time, and are partly conditioned by the matter 
existing outside of the territory under considera- 
tion. . . . Empty space in its physical relation is 
neither homogeneous nor isotropie.’° 


Light rays and other energies follow the curvature of 
physical space or the ether as a river follows its bed, or, 
better still, as a split in the wood follows a warp in the 
grain. Hinstein’s prediction of the curvature of light in 
the neighbourhood of the sun is now an established fact. 
But Ejinstein’s general theory is founded on an assumption 
as regards matter which has no basis in fact, viz., point- 
particles. The smallest units of matter that we know are 
finite quanta—the negative and positive electrons. The 
“molluses” of the real field are not indefinitely small, nor 
can they be chosen arbitrarily. The interlacing meshes of 
the web of space are definitely determined by matter, and 
they are determined as finite intervals, statable as integral 
numbers. The order is likewise definitely determined. The 


16 A Einstein, Szdelights on Relativity, p. 18. 


316 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


whole material world determines an absolute cosmic field 
and absolute geodesic lines, which are the course of motion. 
But the real structure of physical space-time is neither 
that of Newton nor that of Einstein. Successful as 
Einstein’s theory has been, it is at best a statistical approx- 
imation to the real constitution of nature as empirically 
verifiable. Eventually a finite calculus based upon the 
empirical constitution of nature—its matter and space- 
time—will supplant the theory of Einstein as this has 
supplanted the theory of Newton. But in the meantime 
the method of Einstein is serviceable as the next step, and 
a revolutionary step, in science. 

The challenge of mathematical method is more serious 
for Whitehead than for Einstein. While Einstein frankly 
admits the artificial and arbitrary character of his descrip- 
tion and disclaims any physical significance for his space- 
time, Whitehead sets himself to give an account of nature. 
His abstractions are conceived as extensive abstractions. 
Even event-particles with their point-instants are con- 
ceived as contained in nature. But it is hard to see how 
points, instants, and physical point-particles can be con- 
ceived as abstractions from events which possess spatial 
extension, temporal duration, and physical thickness. 
They are only limiting concepts of extensive series and 
the limits lie outside the series. The spatial, temporal, and 
physical points do not possess the character of extension 
and inclusion. Whitehead admits that “the creative 
advance of nature,’ which is his expressive characteriza- 
tion of concrete reality, is “not serial.” ** But it is easy to 
see that Whitehead has left himself no other locus for 
such entities, so he had to include them within nature. He 
had set himself to deal with nature as closed to mind. 
There is to be no bifurcation into subjective and objective. 
Nature is to be self-contained to a theory of nature. He 
did not leave the least hole through which, he could chuck 
embarrassing entities. The percipient organism is indeed 
part of nature, but it is to be conceived as a strictly phys- 

17 The Concept of Nature, p. 178. 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 317 


ical thing. If he had admitted mental perspectives as a 
part of nature, then he might have had a locus for such 
creative additions as points and Newtonian uniformities 
and other abstract and sometimes misplaced limits. In any 
case, I cannot see how, in any real sense, points, instants, 
and point-particles can be said to be contained within 
nature, or how such entities can be said to have a real 
complexity. There is, it seems to me, an unbridgeable 
chasm in the argument. I can see that common sense 
events, such as iron, can be abstracted from the total flow 
of nature. I can see, too, how we can abstract space- 
properties and time-properties from any empirical event. 
For certain purposes and under certain conditions we can 
shrink the extension of any one event. We can also select 
within an event of nature certain physical characteristics 
and use these for purposes of description; and finally by 
further abstraction and inference we can arrive at the 
objects of science—molecules, atoms, and electrons. But 
points, instants, and point-particles are not contained in 
the same sense as adjectives or as the objects of science. 
They can only be considered as part of nature if we regard 
the instrumental function of mind as part of nature. 

But there is a more fundamental objection to White- 
head’s concept of nature. He assumes at the outset the 
continuous duration of nature, which is only another way 
of phrasing the Newtonian flow. But is such an assump- 
tion warranted? Nature, it is true, furnishes us with a 
great variety of geometric extensions and a great variety 
of durations in its complexity of events. But the concept 
we are entitled to form in each ease is a class concept like 
that of colour. We cannot say that colour is inclusive in 
the quantitative sense, viz., that we can arrive at the vari- 
ous colours by taking chunks out of a general extension of 
colour. And so there is no general space extension or dura- 
tion extension. We have a large variety of geometrical 
spaces and durations in the empirical world. But they are 
qualitatively different and therefore not integrable any 
more than red and blue are integrable. It is just because 


318 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


of this fact that the general theory of relativity is forced 
upon us by experience. Our values of time and space are 
different from molluse to mollusc, whether the mollusc be 
finite or indefinitely small. One geometric curvature can- 
not be included in another. They are not commensurate, 
though we may, if we succeed in discovering an empirical 
constant, like the mass of a body of matter, be able to 
read our molluscs in a certain order. 

We are obliged to conclude that the conception of a 
general duration and a general extension, each of which 
has the character of inclusion and therefore can be divided 
ad infinitum, is fictitious, whatever instrumental value it 
may possess. Extension in the concrete and duration in 
the concrete are properties of events which vary in the 
variety of perspectives. It would be merely a matter of 
accident if we should find that two events have the same 
extension or the same duration as it is a matter of accident 
that they are blue. Such events would, of course, be inte- 
erable in the sense that they possess the same property. 
They may be regarded as cases of the same property. For 
descriptive purposes we may find it convenient to substi- 
tute constants for the curvature of the empirical field, and 
to quantify nature in terms of abstract units of extension; 
but it remains true, nevertheless, that the empirical field 
varies qualitatively in structure and that therefore the 
chunks of the real passage of nature, be they finite or 
infinitesimal, are non-integrable. 

It is, of course, highly artificial to treat duration as linear 
extension and to make it a fourth dimension, indistin- 
guishable from the dimensions of geometric space. Dura- 
tion is, in fact, Incommensurable with space extension. It 
is a unique character or rather a class of characters, since 
various durations have their own unique curvature. Let 
us use duration, as we know it in our own life history, as 
an illustration. Every chunk of that history has its three 
dimensions of rising, climax, and waning. It is absurd, 
however, to treat the psychological present as one block 
of a definite duration. The specious present, with its 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 319 


dromedary curve, is one of those picturesque fictions which 
take hold of the imagination and remain unchallenged for 
a long time. To psychological analysis, however, the dura- 
tion of a life history is far from a uniform flow. We must 
not confuse the clock intervals in terms of which we mark 
off our life, with the duration of the life stream and its 
events. Different processes of different durations are com- 
present within any chunk of this history. Psychological 
duration is not a simple affair but a sheaf of motions, 
having each its velocity or duration. They are accel- 
erated or retarded in the structural fields in which they 
pass. Some events, such as sensations and feelings, may 
endure only for a brief fraction of a second, while attitudes, 
schemes of meaning, patterns of character may endure for 
years. In the human individual, moreover, there is a 
hierarchy of guiding fields, each imposing its control on 
those below. Thus the events of one level may be inhib- 
ited, retarded, or accelerated through the control of the 
higher level. Stimuli, such as light vibrations, travel with 
their own velocity but are retarded or curved in the energy 
fields of the sense organs. Sense impulses in turn have 
their own velocity but are retarded in the hierarchy of 
neural structure where they are sorted into kinds. The 
perception of sense-data has its own duration, dependent 
upon the structure of the dominant field of interest. Some 
sense impulses receive no attention, others only passing 
attention, others prolonged attention. Attention again is 
the function of the field and accelerated or retarded by 
this field. In turn this field is changing at different rates, 
sometimes being constant in the main structural features 
for a long time, while minor features change rapidly. 
Sometimes there is a sudden change in the whole structural 
field and therefore a change in all the interests and values. 
The character of the field is determined by the interacting 
of a certain structure—the enduring history, partly racial, 
partly individual—with the environment. 

What we call the self is a system of exchanges in the 
maintenance of the life of the individual. Some motions 


320 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


are slowed up by hereditary pattern fields into neural 
reflexes, some are slowed up by the curvature of the more 
complicated individual history into neural habits, while 
others involve more complicated structures and are slowed 
up as memory and imagination, which in turn may be 
slowed up as habits. But while slowed up and curved into 
potential energy within the higher levels, they continue to 
move within the dynamic field of the total life of the indi- 
vidual in his interaction with his environment. Habits 
decay or are reinforced. Memory is never a mere living 
over of past events with their duration, but a living them 
over in a new system with a duration of its own. Hence 
the change in values as well as in details. At best we are 
poor judges of the passing of our own events. In the course 
of life, memories are taken up into larger symbolic pat- 
terns of meaning, emotions are condensed into sentiments, 
habits are co-ordinated into character in which new values 
and durations are imposed upon them; and the whole 
creative passage takes place within the field of a life 
interest which we call personality, which in turn has its 
own rhythm and duration of passage. The curvature, 
again, of the field of individual history, with its more or 
less integrated patterns of events, is controlled by the dom- 
inant field of social interest which determines in large part 
the emphasis, duration, and structure of our individual 
interests; and, finally, including it all, is the creative pas- 
sage of nature of which we and society are parts, and this 
in turn has its own structure and determines the curvature 
of the life of the race, eliminating, retarding, accelerating 
in accordance with its own structure and duration. Thus 
the geometry of the duration of the individual life is 
exceedingly complex; and compared with it the geometry 
of a gravitational field is simplicity itself. 

There would be still greater difficulty in treating the 
institutional fields of human experience as four-dimen- 
sional space-time manifolds. Here duration plays an even 
more significant part, since here we must take account not 
merely of the individual duration, but duration as cumu- 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 321 


lative tradition, furnishing a field within which individ- 
uals move. Take, for example, the field of matrimony. 
When people marry they constitute a new field of rela- 
tions. A spectator in Mars or a too earthly behaviourist 
might try to treat the field in terms of geometry. He 
would see two bodies moving with reference to each other 
in a new way, with retardation and acceleration of move- 
ments as a consequence. It would be a curved geometry 
of a very complicated kind. There are empirical constants 
in the way of temperaments and past habits with their 
inertia. There are two life histories, each with its unique 
perspective. Even when they are actually curved within 
the guiding field of common affection and common obliga- 
tions, consolidated into custom, it is not easy to find a 
frame of reference from which to read the events of the 
common life. Each one may try to treat the events of the 
other life as having the same co-ordinates of value as his 
or her own, with disastrous conflicts. They may strike a 
rough average and each forego certain values for the sake 
of the common direction. This direction is a creative 
advance of nature and unique. They may find a new 
frame of reference in the life of a child in whose interest 
you can read the convergence of their lives. If the motions 
of both bodies in marriage could be treated merely as 
functions of a common bond, a common field of motion, 
as the transcendentalists would have it, the reading of the 
events with their space-time would be comparatively 
simple. You would then have a Euclidian field of uniform 
motion, though even then each such field would be unique 
and would have to be investigated empirically. But the 
real field of matrimony involves the curving of lines of 
motion, of life histories, at any rate in part. In reading 
the behaviour of either life in reference to the other, we 
find, if the field holds together for a considerable time, 
that there is determination by adjustment. The values 
are different from what they would be within each history 
in isolation. Beside the adjustment to the common bond, 
there are adjustments to the world of outer relations with 


322 ~ COSMIC EVOLUTION 


“all its independent variables, including mothers-in-law. 
Within this larger field of relations the field of matrimony 
must move, and is subject to various curvatures accord- 
ingly. Truly the field of matrimony is too complex for the 
calculus of Einstein. In a relative world even method is a 
matter of adjustment. Each field of matrimony requires a 
method all its own. And yet perhaps nowhere is the rela- 
tivity of adjustment with its space-time implications more 
patent—at least to a bachelor occupying an independent 
frame of reference. One thing is certain, the conception of 
relativity applies, wherever there is time and motion; and 
the more concrete the relations, the more vital it is to take 
account of it. 

The theory of relativity, it 1s clear, will have to be 
adapted to the empirical facts. The differential calculus 
has in the past been a useful instrument in certain abstract 
fields. But the mere fact that it has worked tolerably well 
is not sufficient proof that nature has the constitution indi- 
cated. Points and instants are artificial cross sections of 
the temporal stream of nature. By no magic of synthesis 
can they be made to constitute this stream. Nature has 
real duration. We know now that in certain fields of phys- 
ical science nature passes in finite quanta and therefore 
demands a finite calculus. This is even more apparent in 
the field of experience which we know most intimately, 
viz., the psychological passing of nature. The passage of 
nature, so far as we can verify it, is by finite throbs, not by 
infinitesimals. The degree of duration of nature must be 
ascertained empirically. Functionally human organisms 
may be the same for relatively long spans. A man after 
maturity of body and mind may react the same for many 
years. Wood and stone have a still longer span of dura- 
tion. Chemical elements seem well-nigh eternal. They can 
be identified in spectra of all stages, though the radio- 
active elements indicate that at least some elements have 
their seasons. But while the theory of relativity is itself 
relative to the passing of nature and must be revised to 
meet the needs of human experience, the intuition which - 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 323 


it embodies is fundamental. Time is of the essence of 
reality, and no theory of reality can stand which fails to 
recognize its temporal aspect. And where there is time and 
change there is relativity. 

In examining the theory of relativity we have empha- 
sized only those features which seem to us significant for 
philosophy. We are not concerned with any special math- 
ematical framework, nor with certain assumptions of Ein- 
stein’s school. The assumption, for example, that there 
can be no velocity greater than that of light, and that 
anything which should reach this limit would have an 
infinite mass and energy, follows from the unique place 
assigned to the velocity of light as the limiting value of 
certain equations. Of course, if we select the velocity of 
hight as our limiting value, it could not be exceeded—in 
the equations. This device, no doubt, has its convenience 
in the restricted form of the theory of relativity; but it is 
not a law of nature. It is true that at present we know of 
no velocity greater than that of light, but this does not 
entitle us to say that there can be no velocity greater than 
that of light. All we can say is that the Einstein-Lorentz 
formula has been verified for the Beta electrons from 
uranium, which have a velocity of about 98% that of light. 
The pyrotechnic deduction from the special theory that 
a man travelling with the velocity of a ight wave would 
not grow older is of course the result of the same assump- 
tion, viz., that light travels with an absolute velocity, inde- 
pendent of the source and of the motion of any frame of 
reference and that no velocity can exceed that of hght. 
If the basic assumption were true, such a fast traveller 
would have no way of knowing that he is getting older, but 
that is no evidence that the cycle of life would not run its 
course unless that cycle is a function of light, which no one 
has asserted. But light does not enjoy the absolute distine- 
tion which the special theory has conferred upon it, as 
Einstein himself has shown in the general theory. Its 
velocity and direction vary with the character of the energy 
fields which it traverses. 


324 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


It is supposed by some that the theory of relativity 
works into the hands of epistemological idealism. This 
seems to me a mistaken interpretation. It is true that since 
the events of nature and their relations are relative, 
our knowledge must be relative. But the relativity of 
events and properties in their space-time relations is 
not a relativity to mind, unless the properties be 
mental properties. The bending of stellar rays in the 
neighbourhood of the sun is not due to mind. Scientists 
merely took account of it as a fact. Local space and local 
time are not relative to mind, but to motion. Mind merely 
calculates the result. Some perspectives are indeed mental 
perspectives. Such are the perspectives of knowledge and 
value. These perspectives, too, are moving perspectives. 
Mind is part of the creative passing of nature. Our view- 
points and valuations vary from life history to life history 
and in different chunks of our life-duration. Human expe- 
rience furnishes no absolute measure. But we ignore indi- 
vidual differences and for certain groups and periods en- 
force our Euclidian geometry—our rough social standards. 

It is true that we have no data except as furnished by 
experience, directly or by implication. The baby responds 
to certain organic sensations and certain objective stimuli 
with certain random movements and reflexes. The reflexes 
of grasping lead to the reflexes of putting the object into 
its mouth; this stimulates the reflexes of sucking, etc. 
There are a few vague instincts and emotions at birth 
which lead to equally vague reactions. By means of trial 
and error these vague responses are canalized into habit 
and memory. Later the selective responses become more 
discriminative. By means of language and social inter- 
action we learn to respond to the more abstract aspects of 
things. But all our responses are concerned with energy 
relations to our environment. Through these selective 
responses we come to classify the stimuli—the events and 
characteristics to which we respond—into material stimuli, 
light stimuli, social stimuli, etc.; and thus we build up the 
types and levels of the objective world. Through these 


THEORIES OF RELATIVITY 325 


integral responses in space-time, reality is known; but 
while we must be conscious of these responses in the 
knowledge relation, they are not “states of consciousness.” 
They are energy relations. The knowledge relation itself 
is an energy relation, involving a minded organism as one 
terminus of the relation. What the other termini are must 
be ascertained through the quality of the responses. In 
social relations the interaction is of mind with mind. The 
termini are minds with their relative movements or various 
histories, curved within the field of a common tradition. 
But other parts of reality do not respond as minds. And 
no metaphysical theory can alter these qualitative differ- 
ences in our finite relations. It may still be maintained 
that the quality of the whole-control is mental or super- 
mental. With this attitude, we have no quarrel. But we 
must still conceive this whole-control in terms of energy 
and not in terms of such intellectualistic abstractions as 
the unity of consciousness. And we must remember that 
this whole-control involves a hierarchy of levels with their 
complexity, inertia, and relativity of motions. The quality 
of this whole-control may lie beyond our experience, yet 
within it we live and move and have our being. 


GCHAPIRE RAVER 
REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 


Our little life, with its rainbow glory is a junction of 
world-streams travelling in diverse directions and with 
diverse velocities, but held up for a moment within the field 
of mind and ordered by the pattern of human experience. 
The substantial fabric of the world of sense dissolves into 
the passing show of space-time perspectives. Now and 
then it is given to some genius to rise by imaginative con- 
templation to the law of the whole. But all our knowledge 
is relative to the perspectives of human experience, and 
human experience is itself part of the passing of nature. 
When we try to reduce our motley world to order and 
measure, it is, after all, order as we conceive it and the 
measures are our measures. But with undying faith we 
shall continue to piece out the riddle of the whole from 
our fragmentary evidence. If the light of our reason is but 
a feeble and reflected light, it suffices to pierce the dark- 
ness a little way ahead. And if we are loyal to the hight we 
have, we shall prepare for a greater light. For when we 
have passed from the scene and the golden sun shall look 
upon us no more, other pilgrims shall follow in the self- 
same yet new path; and shall ask the selfsame yet new 
questions; and shall struggle in anguish of soul as we have 
struggled to make the hght shine farther into the unknown. 

The relativity of human experience and human measures 
is not a new insight. It goes back to the ancient Protag- 
oras. Nor is the effort new to discover a law of relativity. 
The genius of the divine Plato tried to rise to the order of 
the whole beyond the flux of perception. But the new 
theory of relativity has thrown fresh light upon the nature 
of the qualitative and quantitative perspectives which fur- 

326 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 327 


nish the basis of our knowledge, and has also projected a 
mathematical formula by means of which we may order 
our perceptions. The emphasis has been upon the rela- 
tivity of our quantitative measures of space and time. But 
quantitative measurement depends upon the comparison 
of qualitative perspectives so far as these can be treated 
as having extension. Our quantitative units are pragmatic 
devices by means of which we try to measure the passing 
perspectives of nature from our plural frames of reference. 
If qualitative perspectives are relative to the passing of 
nature, quantitative perspectives are relative to qualita- 
tive and therefore secondary. 

For purposes of prediction we quantify qualitative per- 
-spectives belonging to one type. We treat space extension 
as a continuous quantity, ignoring the uniqueness of geo- — 
metric extensive qualities. In this way we are able to use 
yardsticks and other extensive measures. In the same way 
we may quantify the passing of nature by abstracting the 
duration aspect from the variety of concrete durations and 
treating it as a continuous quantity which can be measured 
by clocks. In the same manner philosophers have spoken 
of consciousness in general, which is merely an abstrac- 
tion from the variety of primary awarenesses. But this 
practical device of grouping characters into classes and 
treating these classes as purely extensive should not blind 
us to the reality of the primary differences. A medizeval 
realist in like manner regarded colour as essentially an 
extensive genus out of which colours are differentiated, and 
man as an extensive universal of which men are instances. 


The Order of Nature 


One of the most persistent bifurcations of reality is that 
into particulars and universals. There could be no more 
striking illustration of the bias of human interest. Half- 
minds see half-truths. Only whole-minds see whole-truths, 
and such minds are extremely rare. The earliest emphasis 
on particulars as contrasted with patterns comes down to 
us from the atomists of ancient Greece. If the atoms and 


328 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


their mechanical motions in space are the only ultimate 
facts, then the order or pattern of events must be the 
work of chance. Lucretius, the Roman poet, furnishes us 
the classical explanation of how this might happen. 


For verily not by design did the first-beginnings of 
things station themselves each in its right place by 
keen intelligence, nor did they bargain sooth to say 
what motions each should assume, but because the 
first-beginnings of things, many in number in many 
ways impelled by blows for infinite ages back and kept 
in motion by their own weights, have been wont to be 
carried along and to unite in all manner of ways and 
thoroughly to test every kind of production possible 
by their mutual combinations, therefore it is that, 
spread along through great time after trying unions 
and motions of every kind, they at length meet 
together in those masses which suddenly brought 
together become often the rudiments of great things, 
of earth, sea, and heaven and the race of living 
things." 


This is an honest attempt, at any rate, to evolve the uni- 
versal from the particular, order from chance, and has not 
been improved upon. The miracle would have to be 
repeated an indefinite number of times and in an indefinite 
number of places. While Lucretius here envisages reality 
as one history, from chaos to an accidentally evolved 
order, he shows at times an intuition of a law of compen- 
sation and reciprocal exchange; for in spite of the fact that 
everything appears to wane and ebb by length of time, 


yet the sum is seen to remain unimpaired by reason 
that the bodies which quit each thing, lessen the 
things from which they go, gift with increase those to 
which they have come, compel the former to grow old, 
the latter to come to their prime, and yet abide not 
with these. Thus the sum of things is ever renewed 


* Munro’s translation, p. 126, 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 229 


and mortals live by reciprocal dependency. Some 
nations wax, others wane, and in a brief space the 
races of living things are changed and like runners 
hand over the lamp of life.” 


Had Lucretius worked out this intuition of reciprocal 
dependency he might have dispensed with the doctrine of 
chance, for why should not the pattern as well as the 
matter be communicated, as indeed is the case in human 
life? 

The problem of the universal and the particular, the 
class and its instances, becomes central in the Middle Ages. 
Here we have a clear bifurcation. Roscellinus, if we may 
believe his enemies, declares that the individual only is 
real and the universal is a mere name, flatus vocis, while 
William of Champeaux in his extremest statement main- 
tains that only the universal is real and the individual is 
flatus vocis. But common sense prevailed over extreme 
nominalism and extreme realism, and in Abelard and 
Thomas Aquinas medieval thought returns to the Aris- 
totelian position—the universal in the individual, the 
instances in the class, though from the point of view of 
human discovery the universals appear post rem. For a 
brief period the whole-point-of-view triumphs over the 
part-point-of-view, though the abstractions are rather 
added together than envisaged as abstractions. 

Modern nominalism takes its cue from the sophisticated 
psychological atomism of Hume rather than from the 
naturalistic atomism of Leucippus. Kant’s attempt to 
mediate between psychological atomism and rationalistic 
realism proved futile, for with Kant the order of nature is 
imposed arbitrarily by the human mind upon the manifold 
of sensation, the facts of nature. The human mind does 
not discover order in nature but creates that order. The 
artificial gulf between the abstract particulars and the 
abstract categories remains. In the German idealistic 
movement, realism triumphs and the world of sense 


2 Ibid., p. 32. 


330 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


becomes a function of the pattern-creative activity of 
mind, while in Anglo-American empiricism nominalism 
triumphs and the world of fact dissolves into chaotic par- 
ticulars. Nominalism has had a recent revival in William 
James and Bertrand Russell. In the brilliant language of 
William James: 


The world per se may be likened to a cast of beans 
on a table. By themselves they spell nothing. An 
onlooker may group them as he likes. He may select 
groups and name them capriciously, or name them to 
suit certain extrinsic purposes of his. Whatever he 
does, so long as he takes account of them, his account 
is neither false nor irrelevant. If neither, why not call 
it true? It fits the beans-minus-him, and expresses 
the total fact, of the beans-plus-him. Truth in this 
total sense is partially ambiguous then. If he simply 
counts or maps, he obeys a subjective interest as much 
as if he traces figures. Let that stand for pure “intel- 
lectual” treatment of the beans, while grouping them 
variously stands for non-intellectual interests.” 


The facts, then, are neutral so far as any order is con- 
cerned. There are no objective patterns in reality. 

It is but a short step from objective neutralism to com- 
plete neutralism. Hume had already shown that if we 
dissociate the object into particular impressions, we must 
also dissociate the subject into particulars. He can find no 
ego but “a bundle of perceptions.’ The initial mistake 
lies, of course, in hypostasizing experience as stuff, for- 
getting that in reality experience is experiencing and that 
experiencing is a selective relation of a percipient energy 
system to the specific energy systems with which it inter- 
acts. Once we forget this and treat the functions of this 
relation as substantive bits by help of the fixation of 
words, psychological atomism follows. We come to speak 
of particular sensations, feelings, ideas, ete., and we can 

* The Letters of William James, Vol. II, pp. 295, 296. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 331 


find no pattern because we have already abstracted from 
the concrete pattern interaction. Such an intellectualistic 
introspection is bound to find that the self is as much the 
product of external association as are the equally fictitious 
external objects. The “I think” becomes identical with 
the “TI breathe.” Now all abstractions are neutral. Only 
energy systems have efficiency. Therefore, the intellec- 
tualistic introspectionist argues that reality 1s compounded 
of neutrals and that mind and body are only different 
names which we give to certain external collocations of 
neutrals. Those that are more permanent we call body, 
and those that are more transient we call mind, but both 
are made of the stuff of pure experience! What a comedy 
of errors, once we launch on this intellectualistic procedure 
of false abstraction. It is the irony of fate that the amiable 
William James, the sworn foe of all intellectualism, should 
thus have become its victim. It is to his moral credit that 
he ignored the practical consequences and remained true 
to his ethical idealism, with its emphasis on the efficacy of 
faith and the momentousness of spiritual attitudes. It 
was left to his lesser imitators, who had nothing to lose, to 
follow out his “pure empiricism” to its limits. 

It is an illusion of linguistic abstraction to suppose that 
particulars exist. A brute fact is not a fact at all. Nor can 
we say that these isolated particulars subsist, 7.e., are 
aspects of reality. Particular sensations do not subsist as 
the substantive, atomic entities which we find in tradi- 
tional psychology. (But for our purpose we shall ignore 
the technical distinction between the terms exist and sub- 
sist, since in reality all facts are dependent upon contexts 
and only the whole has absolute existence.) Particular 
sensations do not enter into compounds. It is not true 
that sensations are the raw-material out of which all the 
furniture of heaven and earth is made. They are “inert,” 
as Berkeley held, because they are abstractions. We do 
not sense sensations, we sense aspects of energy relations. 
Sense facts can only be understood as functions of energy 
systems, involving complicated relations. The nominalists 


332 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


have been right in denying that abstract universals exist, 
but they have only fallen on the other horn of the dilemma 
when they have insisted that particulars exist. The antith- 
esis itself is due to a false abstraction from the concrete 
matrix of reality. There is the passing in nature from one 
energy system to another. But there exists nothing which 
is not a part of some energy organization unless it be the 
lowest conceivable limit of diffuse heat; but from a cosmic 
point of view this limit of the downward trend is a turn- 
ing point in the rhythm of the downward and upward 
path. 7 

The theory of relativity emphasizes that everything 
must be understood as part of fields of energy with their 
space-time structure. The relations in nature are not rela- 
tions between abstract entities. This is as true in the 
physical worid as in the human world. Our gravitational 
and electromagnetic laws hold for neighbourhoods: they 
have no applicability to entities in the abstract. And they 
must be understood dynamically, not statically. This is 
even more apparent when we deal with the evolution and 
functioning of living forms. The abstracting of the indi- 
vidual from his environment vitiates our formule alike 
in the living and physical world. It makes the properties 
of things which are functions of energy perspectives unreal 
abstractions. Active space-time functioning is the aspect 
of which our particulars of sense are abstract substantia- 
tions. And this functional relation 1s a varying relation. 
Even in our abstract mathematical world the particulars 
such as points, instants, numbers, exist only as constituted 
and defined by unique systems with their postulates. 
Only particulars in systems are real; and then they are 
no longer mere particulars. They lose their hard shell 
and become fluid in the varying relations of the system 
of which they are functions. 

There has been an attempt to simplify the problem by 
substituting abstract essences for abstract particulars. 
There is supposed to be a universal whiteness or a uni- 
versal redness in which the particulars participate. It is 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 333 


by redness that things are red, by goodness that things 
are good, and by beauty that things are beautiful. The 
doctrine of course goes back to Plato, but it has had an 
interesting rehabilitation recently.“ And the old confu- 
sion has also been rehabilitated. In the first place, the 
concepts of sense qualities are confused with sense quali- 
ties. The verbal concepts seem immutable and universal, 
once their meaning has been fixed by tradition. On the 
contrary, the sense qualities undergo change owing to the 
variation of the perspectives of which they are aspects. 
And the sense qualities are specific, non-integrable 
aspects, though they are repeated when the conditions 
are repeated. There may be one concept of redness, but 
the sense qualities of red are various and one is as real 
as another. Owing to repetition in nature, including our 
organism, we can identify a sense quality as the same, 
and so we can have a concept of it. We can conceive a 
world such that no quality could be experienced more 
than once, but in such a world there could be no con- 
cepts, no memory, nor thought. Constancy in our world, 
however, is pragmatic and relative to the space-time 
conditions of nature. We must not mistake verbal identity 
for identity in nature. Qualities are not eternal essences 
but variable functions. The abstract essences, moreover, 
are not simple entities. So far from being simple entities 
or even aspects, they are in fact class concepts. There 
does not exist an essence of whiteness nor of redness nor of 
humanity, but there is a class of whitenesses or rednesses 
or human beings, consisting of aspects of nature which 
are themselves non-integrable even if within limits 
repeatable. Surely it is the limit of absurdity to regard 
nature as participating in essences which are themselves 
classes of aspects of nature. Essences, then, are merely 
hypostasized abstractions of the second order and there- 
fore even more remote from reality than the abstract 
particulars from which they are derived, though there 
is a true sense in which there are classes of aspects in 
*“G. Santayana in Essays in Critical Realism, pp. 178-183. 


304 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


nature when we take account of the creative activity of 
the human mind. 

We have seen that particulars are linguistic abstrac- 
tions and as abstractions cannot be said to exist. We 
must recover the innocence of the senses before we can 
perceive sense facts. But what about universals? Can 
they be said to exist? It must be borne in mind that the 
traditional concept of the universal includes both the 
concept of class and the concept of order, and this has 
caused no small confusion from Plato down. Can we say 
that a class exists? Does a class exist in external nature 
or merely in the human mind? It must be clear that a 
class as an abstraction, a set of linguistic labels, does not 
exist in nature, though it has a certain existence in the 
human mind. But in fact we do not thus separate 
between a class as a linguistic abstraction and what is 
classified. What the class means is a collection of aspects 
of nature as included within a defining relation. And 
the class includes all the relevant facts. The class of 
colour includes all colours within a defining relation which 
excludes all facts that are not colours. The class of 
humanity includes all human beings within the defining 
characteristics which exclude all but human beings. The 
class concept must be relevant to the aspects of nature 
intended, and the aspects of nature must lend themselves 
to classification. Thus colours can be distinguished in 
experience from facts which are not colours; and they 
also contain distinctions amongst themselves so that we 
can arrange them in. different series. There is the ele- 
ment of discovery which is subjective and of course the 
particular labelling is subjective in the sense that it 
belongs to mind. But the class of colours is not a fiction. 
It exists in nature as a group of aspects which our mind 
selects and abstracts as the class of colours. The dis- 
crimination and labelling makes the class clear and dis- 
tinct for us, it does not create the group of aspects and 
their relations. Quantitative classes, our measurements 
of the aspects of nature, are secondary in that they 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 335 


involve the conventional process of measuring with its 
conventional units, but while the method is arbitrary it 
is still true that so far as the measuring is consistent with 
nature, such classes are implied in nature. Of course 
the concept of classes, whether qualitative or quantita- 
tive, is bound up with the human mind. But we must 
remember that mind is part of nature in a larger sense, 
part of its history and interaction, and that therefore the 
selective and synthesizing activity of the mind is not 
arbitrarily imposed upon nature. Mind is a process of 
adjustment within nature, and since the human mind 
has grown out of nature, it is no miracle that nature lends 
itself to the selective action of mind. 

But classification is not explanation. A class is an 
artificial selection at best. We explain nature when we 
take account of the aspects of nature in the order of 
nature. The concept of order is more fundamental than 
the concept of class, and order in the concrete at any 
rate includes class. In mathematics order is defined by 
the concept of betweenness. But mathematical between- 
ness is “the same for right and left as in the case of 
before and after.” ° In other words, it takes no account 
of the real significance of time. In the real world, we 
mean by order dynamic order. It has reference to time as 
well as space. It looks backward and forward. In the 
creative advance of nature, the temporal order includes 
the spatial order and gives it real significance. As the 
theory of relativity would state it, the order of nature is a 
space-time order, though the mathematical theory of 
relativity ignores “‘the physical significance of time” and 

makes the dimension of time indistinguishable from the 
dimensions of space. 

The old question arises: Can we discover order in 
nature? Or is order a human addition to nature? Is 
man the measure of all things, as Protagoras held? No 
one will dispute that we can find an intrinsic order in the 
works of mind. The mind constructs systems—logical, 

5 J. Laird, A Study in Realism, p. 116. 


336 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


eesthetic, social, ete—with their implications of meaning. 
Such systems, once embodied in symbols, have a certain 
eternity and universality as systems, though they may 
fail as empirical adjustments. Since mind is part oi 
nature, we must recognize order as intrinsic in part of 
nature. The bias of mind for order in nature 1s also part 
of nature. Is there relevance in assuming order in nature, 
inorganic and organic nature, as well as in the activity 
of mind? Our hypotheses as regards order must be tested, 
like our assumptions of properties, through the results of 
experience. Is there a pattern in the atom, in the living 
organism and in nature as a whole? Scientific discovery 
has made it certain that there is an energy pattern in the 
atom which is mathematically statable, however inade- 
quate our efforts may be. Nor can there be any doubt 
that there is a pattern control within the organism which 
would explain the life history of the organism in its inter- 
action with the environment could we clearly define it. 
As in the case of the atom, we have made progress, though 
much remains to be done. The fact, however, seems 
indubitable. The faith in a cosmic order is a stupendous 
venture of creative imagination to make intelligible the 
fragments of reality which we can seize upon in our 
experience, including the ordering activity of mind and 
its partial success in demonstrating order in the world 
beyond. We must account for the emergence of the order- 
ing activity of mind. It is reasonable to suppose that the 
cosmic process furnishes a sufficient cause for the order- 
ing genius of man. The structure of our finite mind must 
be somehow a reflex of nature. It is not intelligible that 
we are washed up on the shore of time by the accidental 
sea drift of heredity and cireumstance—born by the cos- 
mos to be eternally mocked in the most fundamental 
quest of our being. Form is ultimately due to control 
by the whole. The discovery of order is a co-operative 
enterprise between the finite mind and the cosmos. 
Knowledge is a conspiracy between the part and the 
whole. Nature prompts to creativeness and then acts 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 337 


as the test of our efforts. We must strive to view reality 
from the point of view of the whole, and our faith in the 
orderly character of nature is ever rewarded by new dis- 
coveries. And we are but lately of the jungle. 

We may abstract the structure aspect of events from 
its concrete matrix in nature, and for scientific purposes 
we are obliged to practise abstraction. We are aided in 
this abstraction by the fact that the pattern or type has 
a considerable permanency in the passing events of 
nature. The atomic patterns seem to be eternal in nature 
even though some atoms at least, such as the radioactive, 
pass through a cycle of dissolution and synthesis in the 
changes of cosmic weather. Wherever the spectroscope 
reveals atoms they appear to have the same essential 
structure. On the higher levels of synthesis such as the 
organic and mental, we cannot predicate any such eter- 
nity of recurrence, but within the history of our earth, 
organic types have a permanency which dwarfs the fleet- 
ingness of individual lives; and even mental types show 
a remarkable duration in the passing generations. We 
need only mention Hebrew culture, Greek culture, Roman 
culture. And the general laws of mind endure through 
the passing epochs of culture. But while we can thus 
discriminate the aspect of structure and observe its rela- 
tion to other aspects of nature, we must not hypostasize 
structure as Plato did and as the abstract realists after 
him have been prone to do. Structure as an abstraction 
does not exist. It exists only as an aspect in the advance 
of nature. There exist organizations and these are 
dynamic organizations. It is these organizations of 
energy which are efficient causes and which communicate 
energy patterns in time and space. 

This must be said, however: Universals tend to over- 
lap, whether they have to do with classes or order. The 
history of thought shows that it is more difficult to main- 
tain universals in isolation than particulars. The nom- 
inalists seem as dogmatic as ever in their emphasis on 
brute fact, abstract particulars. But the universal in 


338 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


any honest dialectic tends to take on concreteness. 
Plato’s Ideas forsake their isolation in the Timeus and 
become creative world forces. The universals of the 
Medieval realists manage to incarnate themselves in 
individuals somehow, whether by emanation or inherence. 
And the abstraction, the Hegelian absolute, must some- 
how in the dialectic process concrete itself into a sem- 
blance of the empirical world. Surely it is the irony of 
comedy that in the history of thought the radical empiri- 
cists should have proven to be the most extreme dog- 
matists and that absolute fact, as they have emphasized 
it, should have turned out the most extreme fiction. 
Mathematics furnishes the domain of the most abstract 
employment of the constructive activity of mind. When 
such concepts as classes and order are completely sepa- 
rated from the matrix of things, they furnish a realm of 
adventure of their own. To the outsider the revelling 
of the mathematical imagination in infinities of infinities 
may seem a veritable debauch. But the mathematician is 
entitled to his sport; and one can never know when and 
how free imagination may be wedded to fact. If, how- 
ever, he mistakes the realm of his abstract entities and 
relations for the real world, he lives in a cave more closed 
than that of the empirical naturalist, for he is not forced 
to accommodate himself to the stern dialectic of events. 
Mathematical realism, therefore, is the most ghastly real- 
ism. It seems incredible that any one should mistake 
such shadowy fictions as points and instants—the unreal 
hmits of mathematical reason—for ingredients in the real 
world. Even in dealing with such abstract aspects as 
classes and order, it conduces to sanity to remember their 
derivative character. Thought is originally a process of 
trial and error adjustment within the real world. It is 
from the real world that the aspects with which the 
mathematician deals are derived; and however much 
they may be manipulated by the logical imagination, 
their derivative character furnishes the ragged edges 
without which they lose their meaning. It seems far 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 339 


from clear “that two and two would be equal to-four if 
no couples existed in the world.’ We may agree that 
“pure mathematics is logically independent of its appli- 
cations to existence, and so is the pure logic on which 
pure mathematics is based.” But if “logical principles 
are a priori,’ what guarantee have we that they “apply 
to any thinkable being whether such a being could exist 
or not”? Is it a “matter of course, that a prior prin- 
ciples, like those of logic and number, do in fact apply to 
existence’ and that “all existing things have logical 
structure’?* We cannot thus separate thought from 
existence and understand the significance of thought. 
How simple just to assume that “all existing things have 
logical structure!” But at any rate it is only through the 
trial and error adaptation of thought to reality that we 
discover order in nature. Thought must first of all oper- 
ate upon the aspects of existence. It is of course true 
that once thought has made the abstraction of logical 
principles, it can manipulate the aspects of nature in 
new ways. It can even create new entities, such as 
mathematical limits, which have no existence in objec- 
tive nature, taken, as closed to mind, but are creative 
additions resulting from mind operating on nature. But 
though mind is not bound to the routine of nature and 
though such aspects as order and magnitude can be 
abstracted from their real nexus and can be independently 
manipulated in thought, surely there is no sense in say- 
ing that they have any existence except in energy struc- 
tures—the mind itself being such an energy structure. 
They are derived in the first instance, at any rate, from 
experimenting upon the real matrix of things. 

What lends force to the nominalist’s contention that 
such concepts as class, order, and law are conventions— 
mere man-made, arbitrary selections from an _ alogical 
world—is that thought is a trial and error adaptation in 
which mind must contribute its tentative guesses which at 


°The quotations in this paragraph are from A Study in Realism, 
Jie Uaird,, p. 116. 


340 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


best are approximations. The duration and order of 
nature are not immediately intuited by the mind. They 
must be learned; and they must be supplied largely by 
inference from the implications of the facts of sense 
experience. Immediate perception supplies us with but 
a crude matrix of sense aspects with their immediate spa- 
tial and temporal togetherness and their instinctive causal 
implications. The objective order and duration of events 
must be spelled out by the creative activity of the imag- 
ination, restrained by scientific method. There is thus 
necessarily a large subjective element in our reading of 
the order of nature, even though the order of nature is 
not dependent upon our reading of it. In our reading 
of the order of nature we have indeed been guilty of 
“accommodating by violence the nature of the other to 
that of the same,” ” to use a saying of Plato’s. Modern 
science, according to M. Meyerson, proceeds from cer- 
tain concepts of limits, like a perfect gas, a weightless 
lever, a body moving under no external forces, an absolute 
space, an absolute time, etc., and then proceeds to accom- 
modate the variety of motions in nature to these limits. 
Identity is the aspect emphasized by science. 


Reason has never been able to comprehend transi- 
tive action. Atomism is rational, we see, only to the 
extent to which it satisfies the demand of the mind 
for that which remains identical without changing; 
its irrationality is due to the fact that it involves a 
diversity which cannot be rationalized.’ 


The two fundamental concepts of science—law and caus- 
ality—emphasize different aspects of reality, according to 
M. Meyerson. Law, which is another name for invariable 
sequence, emphasizes diversity, while cause emphasizes 
identity: Causa equat effectum. 

*'This quotation from Plato is used by M. Emile Meyerson as the 
motto of his work, De explication dans les sciences, and expresses 
his philosophy of science. 


*From Leonard Russell’s review of the above-mentioned book, in 
Mind, Oct., 1922. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 341 


There is no denying that the procedure of science has 
been artificial. And we must also grant that the abstract 
conventions of science have been pragmatically useful 
in the advance of man’s knowledge of nature and control 
over nature. But we cannot agree that the procedure has 
been purely arbitrary. It could not have succeeded to 
the extent it has if it had been merely convention. While 
there has, no doubt, been too much of a tendency to accom- 
modate nature to scientific abstractions, there has been 
brilliant progress in accommodating man’s abstractions 
to the order of nature. ‘here has been approximation 
towards the order of nature in the advance of science. ‘The 
more adequate our approximation, the less cramped is 
nature in our formuiz; or, what is more to the point, the 
more successful are we in adjusting ourselves to nature. 
Thus Einstein’s theory of relativity has proved a closer 
approximation to reality than the theory of Newton; and 
the quantum theory involves a still more radical adjust- 
ment of our mathematical concepts to the empirical 
aspects of nature. While there is a large subjective ele- 
ment in our knowledge, it means to adjust itself to an 
objective order of nature and is increasingly successful 
in so doing. If there is noticeable approximation to such 
an order, and if the success of knowledge depends upon 
such approximation, knowledge is not entirely arbitrary. 
One of the most important aspects of this advance is the 
taking account of time as well as space in the reading of 
nature, which 1s evidenced in the dominant role of evo- 
lution in the conception of nature. And however abstract 
may be the conception of space-time in the theory of 
relativity, it is testimony to the fact that time cannot 
be ignored even in the abstractest fields of knowledge. 
This makes possible a more adequate account of law and 
causality in nature than the old conventional concepts. 

When, moreover, we say that reason can know certain 
aspects such as identity, but cannot know other aspects 
such as diversity and change, are we not setting an arbi- 
trary limitation to reason? What is it that knows the 


342 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


aspects which reason cannot know and how can we be so 
sure of this other knowledge which reason presumably 
cannot possess? Evidently we must know about these 
other aspects, or we could not know that reason cannot 
know them. Why identify reason thus with a certain 
unreal type of knowledge and not give it credit for the 
more real kind? Evidently we have concepts of diversity 
and change. Why not enlarge our conception of knowl- 
edge to include these? It is precisely this diversity and 
change in nature which makes it necessary to revise our 
old formule and suggest more adequate ones, though, of 
course, we could not have knowledge if there were no 
recurrence, no constancy in nature. Reason for me is 
the whole conscious creative effort at adaptation to real- 
ity as we become conscious of it In human experience. 
In this trial and error process, reason discovers its fail- 
ure or partial failure and, with an undying faith in order, 
strives to accomplish a more successful adaptation. This 
creative adaptation involves not merely such intellectual 
functions as comparison, abstraction and naming, but it 
involves the whole personality, including the volitional 
attitude—the willingness to know—and the emotional 
factor of feeling for order and faith in order. 


Qualities and the Perspectives of Nature 


Two other bifurcations, in the history of thought, have 
blocked the true understanding of relations in nature, 
viz.: the bifureation into things and qualities, on the 
one hand, and the bifurcation into the percipient indi- 
vidual and the environment, on the other. Both bifurca- 
tions are tricks of language. It is by a trick of language 
that we convert qualitative functions into entities and 
proceed to compound things out of qualities, forgetting 
that qualities are but aspects of energy perspectives and 
relative to these. Things and qualities, as thus contrasted, 
are creatures of abstract thought and do not exist in the 
real world. It is names—not things or qualities—which 
exist apart and give plausibility to the bifurcation. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 343 


Equally unreal is the hard and fast division of nature 
into an external environment and a percipient organism. 
This has led the victims of this bifurcation to regard the 
characteristics of the integral situation, in which the 
organism and the external energies interact, as belonging 
to one or the other factor in the situation. Thus the psy- 
chological idealist has insisted that sense qualities are 
the contribution exclusively of the percipient individual, 
while the naive realist has argued that they are the con- 
tribution exclusively of external nature, isolated from the 
percipient organism. Since each partisan bases his theory 
on a false abstraction, one is as far from the truth as 
the other. The history of philosophy consists largely of 
such false and futile antitheses. We are now awakening 
to the fact that sense qualities are the functions of spe- 
cific space-time perspectives, and have no existence 
except as such functions. They do not exist as abstract 
entities either in external things or in the mind. The 
quality of continuous extension can no more than colour 
be attributed to physical things in the abstract, neither 
is 1t a contribution by the human mind. Physical 
nature, we have seen, has a discrete quantum constitution. 
It is in the energy relation of our organism to external 
nature that the quality of continuous extension is sensed, 
just as it 1s in such relation that colour is sensed. Both 
are aspects of space-time perspectives and vary with such 
perspectives. 

Stated in terms of evolution, sense qualities are func- 
tions of the process of adaptive interaction between a 
system of organic energies and the energies of the environ- 
ment in certain space and time relations. If we take a 
concrete instance, such as our sensing of a certain quality 
of red, we find that this involves the character of a certain 
energy source in certain space-time relations to the 
observer. This source sends forth different radiations of 
so many billions per second, which travel through certain 
media and set up certain photochemical changes in an 
organ of specific structure, the retina, these changes being 


344 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


in turn communicated through a selective nervous system 
to the cortex of an organism which in turn is in a certain 
relative motion with reference to the event perceived. 
The specific quality of red, which we perceive in a cer- 
tain finite fraction of duration, is the function of this 
‘total situation. What the physicist calls red is merely a 
type of radiation of a certain wave-length. What we 
sense as a certain red is a function not only of the wave- 
length of physical light radiation, but also of photochem- 
ical and physiological changes of a specific character. If 
the eye fails to function, we are blind. The light rays 
still strike our organism and are responded to in certain 
ways, but we do not sense them as light. If the photo- 
chemical structure of the retina is functionally defective, 
we may be colour-blind or may be red-green blind or yel- 
low-blue blind. The specific response to a certain colour 
with its differences in wave-length and intensity seems, 
according to recent evidence, to involve not merely the end- 
organs but also the selective action of the hierarchy of 
nerve centres with its cortical pattern control. When this 
integral relation is broken in certain cerebral disorders, 
we may have a confused all-or-none response to certain 
kinds of light, but it is not the determinate perceptual 
response which we ordinarily mean by light and colour. 
We cannot say, therefore, that physical light-waves are 
bright or coloured, nor can we say that colour sensations 
are contributions by the individual organism. In one 
sense the position of realism is true: the sense quality of 
colour and every other sense quality 1s independent of 
the psychological history of the observer, in other words 
of the individual’s mental perspectives. 

The sense quality of colour depends upon the intensity 
or amplitude of the physical light-wave as well as its 
wave-length, while a physical colour means just a specific 
wave-length. Some physical light-waves are too weak to 
be sensed at all. Our sensitiveness differs for different 
wave-lengths, 2.e., at the same physical intensity some 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 345 


colours look brighter than others. In ordinary daylight, 
the brightest colour in the spectrum is yellow and violet 
is the darkest. At a low intensity, green is the brightest. 
But the sense quality also varies with variation in inten- 
sity. Thus with greater intensity of light, spectral red 
becomes various tints of pink until finally it is lost in 
dazzling white. With lower intensities, spectral red 
becomes various tints of brown until it is indistinguish- 
able from dark grey. This qualitative variation of sense 
perspectives of colour with the intensity of light is con- 
trary to the physicist’s concept of colour. It is due to 
the specific character of the physiological response. Yet 
one sense perspective is just as real as another. All are 
functions of interaction. Colour contrast and negative 
after-images show even more strikingly the importance 
of the physiological factor in the interaction. By stimu- 
lating for red we may see green, if we place a grey patch 
on a red background. In the case of prolonged stimula- 
tion by one colour-stimulus, we get a negative after-sensa- 
tion of the complementary colour. 

These interactions involve the character of the medium 
between the percipient organism and the source of the 
light waves. The retardation of the waves in the medium 
means the crowding of the spectrum towards red and 
infra-red. We know now that there is such retardation 
of light near large masses of matter. The character of 
the medium must account for the phenomena of inter- 
ference which is itself a striking confirmation of the wave 
character of light. The medium may curve the light 
rays as has been proved in connection with light rays 
travelling near the sun. It may refract light as in our 
atmosphere. It may absorb certain light rays. The 
medium, then, must be taken account of as a determinant 
within sense perspectives. So must the space-time rela- 
tions which in turn affect the intensity. 

It has proved impossible to show any effect of the rela- 
tive motion of a terrestrial observer with reference to the 


346 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


velocity of light. But we can illustrate the effect of rela- 
tive motion in the case of sound. I quote from Professor 
Nunn: ' 


Imagine a number of persons spread along the 
circumference of a large semicircle while a motor car 
from which a whistle of constant pitch is sounded 
moves rapidly along the road which forms the diam- 
eter. Then, as is well known, not only will each 
person at a given moment hear a note different from 
the notes heard by his companions, but the note 
heard by each is different for different positions of 
the car. Moreover, the occupants of the car will 
hear all the time a steady note which, except momen- 
tarily, is heard by none of the bystanders. Are we 
to maintain that all these diverse notes are being 
simultaneously emitted by the whistle? ° 


The answer is, of course, that the listener on the moving 
car and the various listeners in their geometric distribu- 
tion in the semi-circle on the relatively stationary ground 
are all equally right in taking their sense report as the 
true quality of the whistle of the moving car in their 
various space and time relations. The quality of the 
sound is a function of the total situation, involving the 
relative movement and the space distribution of the 
listeners. The variation of the quality of the sound with 
the direction of the listener is, as a matter of fact, one 
of the important aids in telling the direction of the 
object producing the sound. Nothing could better illus- 
trate that there is no absolute quality, but that the quality 
is a function of a specific perspective. This involves, in 
the case just stated, the frame of reference of the source 
of the stimulus, the character of the medium, the vibra- 
tion rate and undulation span of the air motions, the vary- 
ing space position of the listeners to each other and to 

°T. Perey Nunn, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1909-’10, 


pp. 203, 204. The article is a masterpiece of scientific analysis and has 
had a large influence on the realistic movement. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 347 


the air-waves, and the complicated physiological conditions 
including ear, nerves, intermediate neural centres and the 
discriminating function of the cerebrum. 

The conception of a local space-time on different frames 
of reference solves another problem which Professor Nunn 
raises: 


Thus, if I identify the note of an engine as upper C 
when the note “really” emitted is C sharp, my “error” 
may be due either to my ignorance that the engine 
was moving away from me at the rate of 44 miles per 
hour, or to my ignorance that this circumstance would 
make any difference to the sound heard.*” 


The answer is that there is no error, that the engine as 
“really” emits the note of upper C to the listener on the 
frame of reference, taken as stationary with reference to 
the moving engine, as it emits C sharp to the hstener mov- 
ing with the engine. If the whistle were set off on the 
embankment instead of on the engine, the listener on the 
engine would perceive the note as upper C and the observer 
on the ground would hear it as C sharp. On Hinsteinian 
principles the man on the engine, if he knew the difference 
of quality, could account for it by the embankment mov- 
ing away from him at the rate of 44 miles per hour. 

But does not the sense of touch give us absolute quali- 
ties? It seems strange that the testimony of the sense of 
touch should have had such prestige in human thought.** 
It tells us nothing about sound, light, heat, electricity and 
other pervasive energies. It responds only to gross matter, 
yet matter itself on which the sense of touch is moulded 
is now conceived to be electrical. Could touch ever have 
informed us of the electrical constitution of matter? Touch 
tells us very little about the temporal order of events and 
what it tells, as in the touch rhythms of walking and danc- 

1° Ibid., p. 207. 


11 There has been a revival of this emphasis in philosophy recently, 
notably in Professor C. D. Broad’s book, Perception, Physics and 


Reality. 


348 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


ing, is confined mostly to our own organism. As regards 
space relations, we know that people congenitally blind are 
largely wanting in a sense of the third dimension. ‘They 
move in an auditory world. Even in discriminating posi- 
tions in two dimensions, touch is far inferior to sight. In 
the experiment with the compass points, touch identifies 
two points as one when sight shows that they are some 
distance apart. As regards the discrimination of form, 
touch is very rudimentary and does not compare with 
sight and hearing. Only the shape of very small objects, 
such as pennies, can be perceived by active touch. And 
the definiteness which touch seems to contribute in space 
contours as well as in space relations, it borrows largely 
from visual perception. The perception of the shape of 
large objects, such as a house, would not be possible by 
touch alone except as eked out by memory. Nor is the 
testimony of the sense of touch as regards form indubitable 
within its limits. Suppose you draw a pair of compass 
points over the mouth so as to enclose the lips. The sense 
of touch will tell you that the figure described is that of an 
ellipse while sight shows that the lines are parallel. There 
remains the quality of solidity which Descartes refused to 
place among the qualities which are clear and distinct. It 
surely is a very relative quality. The continuity and 
impenetrability of gross matter as reported by touch are 
creative physiological responses—real only within the con- 
ditions of the touch perspective. They are not evidence 
of the objective constitution of matter as ascertained in 
other perspectives. We may shoot an electron through a 
bar of iron without its colliding with anything. So far 
from being solid, matter has spaces within it out of all 
proportion to the filling. Even the most solid matter such 
as steel is compressible. An X-ray photograph gives us 
infinitely better evidence of the structure of matter than 
touch can do. Touch does furnish us evidence of the iner- 
tia of matter, and perhaps we must concede that our con- 
ception of inertia is ultimately derived from active touch. 
But, by itself, touch can tell us nothing of the relation of 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 349 


inertia to motion. In general we may say that touch with 
its vagueness of discrimination is a sort of rough first 
approximation in the adjustment of the organism to its 
environment. 

The emphasis on touch is founded on common sense and 
common sense deals with the integral result in perception. 
It does not analyze the factors which condition this result. 
In this result the sensations from muscles, joimts and 
tendons are fused with the pressure sensations and the 
integral product is called touch. Moreover, the space-time 
of the normal person is dominated by sight. He locates 
other sensations in the space-time of sight. It is true, 
as Berkeley pointed out, that visual perception borrows 
from the motor sensations of the larger musculature, espe- 
cially the arms and legs, but the result 1s a visual perspec- 
tive in which other sensations are located. The human 
brain is dominantly organized for vision and, as Titchener 
points out, the congenitally blind lack a great deal more 
than the use of the eyes: they lack the use of a large part 
of the brain. The normal person, who is not a psycholo- 
gist, attributes to the sense of touch what he has learned 
from visual perception which is fused with the tactual in 
the integral reaction. The use of words gives a fixity and 
definiteness to our perception of qualities and space-time 
relations which an animal incapable of social communica- 
tion could never attain; and this fixation of meaning 
through language is attributed by the untrained observer 
to the senses. This is natural, Inasmuch as perception is 
the integral functioning of the whole individual in the 
service of his interests. 

To the psychologist the sense of touch itself is not 
such a simple affair as it appears to common sense. There 
are as a matter of fact several senses of touch, as Dr. 
Head and his collaborators have shown. There is the 
vague, non-discriminative protopathic sense; there is the 
epicritic sense, with its discrimination of relations in two 
dimensions; and there is the deeper sensibility which 
makes possible orientation in three dimensions, the sense 


300 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


of posture. The latter two senses are the contributions of 
cerebral organization with its complex mechanisms for 
adjustment to the environment. The same hierarchy of 
levels has been verified in visual perception. If we take 
touch, however, as an integral response, there are still 
problems to be faced. If we are to rely on the sense of 
touch as evidence, is it successive touch or simultaneous 
touch that we shall rely on? It is a well known fact that 
the two do not agree. A coarse comb is sensed as longer, 
both spatially and temporally, when the teeth are applied 
successively than when they are applied simultaneously. 
Which is to be the standard? Furthermore a filled inter- 
val—for example, a comb where there is a row of teeth 
between the end-teeth—is sensed as longer, spatially and 
temporally, than an empty interval, 7.e., where there are 
no teeth between the end-teeth. In other words, the 
theory of relativity applies in the field of touch as well 
as in the field of sight. What we do in practice is to com- 
pare the intervals-as-sensed with artificial standards of 
measuring rods and clocks within the frame of reference 
of an observer who is not himself the subject of the experi- 
ment. The sense of touch is no more absolute than the 
sense of sight, and touch has the disadvantage that the 
filled and the empty intervals cannot be experienced 
together by the same organ of sense but must be experi- 
enced successively. We must, therefore, make an addi- 
tional assumption, viz.: the constancy of nature during 
the finite intervals of the experiments. And we know 
that however constant may be the objective aspect of 
nature, the character of the subject who makes the judge- 
ments is not constant. 

Common sense assumes that the sense of touch is the 
same over the whole body. The psychologist knows that 
this is not true. Different parts of the body differ in 
their tactual discrimination. The intervals which can be 
discriminated—whether simultaneous or successive— 
differ for the tips of the fingers, the tips of the tongue, the 
back of the hand, the back of the body, ete. Which part 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 351 


of the body is to be the frame of reference? The common 
sense observer seems to have absolute faith in the finger 
tips and no doubt they are the parts most useful for 
exploration. But theoretically they have no more claim 
to absoluteness than the other parts. Professor G. F. 
Stout well sums up the case: 


The constancy of tactual sensation as compared 
with visual is not a superiority but a defect. It is to 
be noted that they are not constant except for the 
same part of the skin; and even with this restriction, 
constancy is only due to the fact that the conditions 
under which the tactual experience is gained are 
strictly fixed and limited instead of being widely 
variable as they are for sight. . . . The tactual 
sensum is constant only in the way in which anyone 
of the alternative visual presentations is constant so 
long as the eyes are turned in the same direction, and 
the thing is seen at the same distance. The differ- 
ence 1s that tactual experience is limited to one set 
of conditions and does not occur at all without them.*” 


It has been said that the theory of relativity is limited 
to the sense of sight because sight is the only sense which 
can be said to be perspective. It is true that the special 
theory of relativity is optical. It is based upon the assump- 
tion of the absolute velocity of light, and its conceptions 
of simultaneity and succession involve optical signals. 
But, in fact, light does not have this absolute character 
and the special theory has been supplanted by the general 
theory. The significance of the general theory of relativity 
is that we must view reality everywhere as events, that we 
cannot describe events without taking account of time as 
well as space, that reality everywhere appears in space- 
time perspectives, none of which has a privileged character. 
Perspective, then, is not used especially in an optical sense, 
though the word is borrowed from the vocabulary of sight 

12 Mind, October, 1922, pp. 403, 404. 


352 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


and though our data of nature are mostly obtained from 
sight. Wherever we deal with the integral response of 
sensing, whatever the sense may be, we must take account 
of space-time perspective directly or indirectly. Sensations 
as isolated particulars have no existence. ‘They are the 
fictions of traditional psychology. Actual sense responses 
exist only as causal perspectives, involving time as well 
as space. (We call them sense data when we emphasize 
their cognitive significance as aspects of reality.) No 
unsophisticated animal or human being regards sense facts 
as existing merely inside his skin. They are perspective 
relations calling for a certain response to the environment. 
The amoeba moves away from a noxious stimulus and 
towards a satisfying stimulus. It lives in objective rela- 
tions and so does every other animal. The distance senses 
of sight and smell have a peculiar value as signs to the 
other senses of the satisfaction to be sought or the danger 
to be avoided. ‘Thus sight or smell may act as a distance 
sign to the satisfaction of the taste sensations and these 
again are signs to digestion and assimilation. Such sign 
relations between the senses are established by a long 
trial and error process in the race and in the individual. 
What concerns us here is that sense continuities are aspects 
of the adjustment of the organism to its environment. 
Sensing is part of the are of acting, whether the are be 
simple or complex, direct or indirect. And action, from 
the simplest to the most complex, is projective, which 
means that it is perspective. It has to do with the causal 
relation of the environment to the individual, on the one 
hand, and the causal relation of the individual to the 
environment, on the other. The lowest animals respond 
perspectively to an external world in space-time. So do 
plants and inorganic elements. Sensation as we know it 
is only a special organization of such perspective respon- 
siveness throughout nature. 

It is absurd to suppose that any of the senses give us 
an immediate, intuitive copy of external reality. All sense 
responses are causally mediated. Their character is what 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 353 


it is because of the specific energy relations. In each sense 
there is the medium through which the external energies 
affect the nervous system. ‘lhe external energies do not act 
directly upon the nerve endings. Matter does not touch 
the nerve endings of touch. It acts by some sort of induc- 
tion through the superficial skin, which has no sensibility, 
and sets up chemical changes in the proper end-organs of 
touch, and these changes are communicated to the nerve- 
endings and then go through the elaborate mill of selec- 
tion, integration, and projective redirection in the hier- 
archy of the nerve centres. ‘This integral process is what 
we are aware of as sensing, which is itself an aspect of 
acting. ‘The response is to the velocity and duration of 
the stimulus as well as to its extent and location. It is a 
space-time response. ‘Though the process is mediated in 
our own organism, we are under the necessity of discover- 
ing its nature just as much as though we had to do with 
energy systems in the outside environment. It is only 
recently that Dr. Head and others have unravelled the 
hierarchy of factors which enter into seemingly so simple 
a sense perspective as that of touch. 

In all the senses the original organic perspective rela- 
tion to the proper stimulus is modified through experience 
or secondary signs. This can be illustrated in touch as 
well as in sight. The blind learn to estimate distance by 
habit and association. To a certain extent they learn to 
take account of the difference in the external medium. 
They know when they approach a wall by the difference 
in the resistance of the medium. But the secondary aids 
in touch are, of course, meagre beside those available in 
the perspective of sight where apparent size, light and 
shadow, the number of intervening objects, the clearness 
of the object, etc., all help to make definite the crude 
physiological perspective. This does not mean that the 
sense response in touch is not perspective, but that the 
perspective of sight is different and vastly superior by 
virtue both of its complex distance receptors and because 
of superior cerebral organization. 


354 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


But it is not my purpose to discredit any of the senses. 
Rather would I emphasize with Empedocles that we should 
despise none of them. They all contribute their evidence. 
And the evidence of the senses, with the instruments by 
means of which we eke them out (touch being notably in- 
capable of such aids), and the implications which their evi- 
dence carries with it are our only door to physical nature. 
Some philosophers seem to think that if we could only be 
independent of the senses we should perceive the world 
as it is. But a disembodied ghost would have no way of 
knowing the properties of.the physical world. All quali- 
ties are reactions and therefore relative. There are no 
perspectives in the abstract and therefore no properties in 
the abstract. Nor can we say that all perspectives involve 
mind as an active factor. The camera records perspectives. 
There are numerous properties of nature which have only 
lately been discovered. ‘There are spectroscopic, geolog- 
ical, and paleontological perspectives of which we are only 
beginning to become conscious. But it is true nevertheless 
that the data for such properties and perspectives must 
come through sense perception. 

Science has in the past recognized the importance of 
taking account of the actions, reactions, and interactions 
of various fields of energy with their specific structures and 
their relative position in space. But we have been in the 
habit in the past of treating this interrelation of fields, 
with the consequent perspectives, as though these fields 
were stationary with reference to each other. We have 
failed to take account of the variations of perspectives, 
and the consequent variation of their qualitative charac- 
teristics and their quantitative units, owing to the relative 
motion of the frames of reference. Hence the prejudice of 
unvarying qualities and unvarying units. The chief con- 
tribution of the special theory of relativity is to call our 
attention to the difference which our relative movement 
makes to our perspectives. It has emphasized primarily 
the variation of our quantitative units of space and time, 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 355 


but, since these are derived from the qualitative perspec- 
tives, we must seek the real reason for the variations there. 
In short, all the characteristics with which geometry deals 
are in question, not to speak of other characteristics. A 
stone dropped from a moving train to the ground will 
appear to the observer on the train to move in a straight 
line, but to the onlooker on the embankment it will appear 
to describe a curve. An observer stationed on a frame of 
reference outside the earth and stationary with reference 
to its motion would see our square buildings as distorted. 
These phenomena of relative movement are still further 
complicated when lines of motion which intersect with our 
frame of reference are curved in passing through a certain 
physical medium, as light rays are bent in passing near 
the sun. But that is not a problem of relative motion but 
of the geometry of the medium. 

The question naturally arises: Are not these variations 
in tone, in colour, in geometric and other qualities, which 
are due to relative motion, mere appearances? Can they 
be conceived as real in the sense that properties appearing 
in our local space-time are perceived as real? Does not a 
body travel either in a curve or a straight line? Shall we 
take the appearance in our local space-time frame as real 
and discard the appearances from other frames of refer- 
ence as illusions? Such has been our conventional preju- 
dice. But we are now awakening to the fact that it is 
merely prejudice. All perspectives are equally real, though 
pragmatically, or for executive reasons, we may find it 
convenient to standardize certain appearances—to treat 
things as square if they appear square in certain perspec- 
tives. But we should bear in mind that this is an arbitrary 
emphasis due to our practical interest, not a metaphysical 
account of reality. Why discriminate in favour of the 
stationary type of relation when this relation itself is an 
arbitrary selection and everything is in relative motion 
with reference to an indefinite number of frames of ref- 
erence? Our earth cannot boast of an absolute position 


356 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


as man so long thought. Hence all perspectives on it are 
at any rate relative to frames of reference outside the 
earth. 

' Perspectives, then, vary with the structure of the inter- 
acting fields, with their intervening medium, and with 
their space-time relations. Qualities are dependent upon 
perspectives in the sense of being functions or aspects of 
them. They depend in a sense upon the above factors in 
that these determine perspectives and therefore qualities. 
We cannot say that they depend upon the factors in the 
sense that they are “part of’ them, as Russell uses the 
word dependent. Dependent does not necessarily mean 
part of, and part of does not necessarily mean dependent. 
Touch qualities and sight qualities may be said to be 
part of the same perceptual thing in the sense that they 
are aspects of it, but they are not dependent upon each 
other. Again, qualities may be dependent upon certain 
factors without being part of them. Colour is not part 
of the physical light vibrations or the medium or the physi- 
ological organ of vision. It is a function of the integral 
situation involving all the factors. These factors are 
merely abstractions from the integral situation. This sit- 
uation implies creative synthesis. We cannot arithmeti- 
cally add the factors and get the qualitative perspective. 
But taking the integral situation as a fact we can for the 
purposes of prediction analyze it into certain factors. 

It appears that we must regard the sense data of nature 
as determined in part by variables independent. of the 
structure and motion of the percipient organism. The 
stimuli, the things sensed, have a structure and motion of 
their own. They are not merely functions of the percip- 
ient organism. Even organic qualities are not created by 
the percipient; they are not functions merely of the sub- 
ject. Some organic qualities have only recently been dis- 
covered and others await discovery. It is true that we 
know nature only as sense perspectives or implications 
from them, but that is a different assertion from saying 
that nature exists only in our sense perspectives. It is not 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 357 


the percipient organism which makes light rays curve in 
the vicinity of the sun, but the presence of a large body of 
matter which alters the structure of the field through 
which light travels and so alters our perspective. It is not 
the percipient organism which makes the magnet move in 
adjustment to the position of the loadstone, but the per- 
cipient perspective is altered by that fact. Iron and gold 
have a different structure and a different density. It is 
not perceiving them which makes them different, but we 
perceive them as different. With a certain amount of 
pressure iron can be reduced in volume; with a certain 
temperature it can be poured like water, under certain 
conditions it rusts away. But it is not our perceiving iron 
that makes the difference, but certain conditions which 
vary independently of the percipient organism, and which 
make a difference in our sense perspectives. The elephant 
has a life span of more than a hundred years, while some 
insects live their life cycle within a day. But neither the 
character nor the duration of the life cycle depends upon 
its being perceived. Again the celestial bodies are situated 
at various space-time distances from us from 1.2 light sec- 
onds to the moon to thousands of light years to the spiral 
nebule. It is not our perception which makes the dis- 
tance, but our sense perspective differs with the distance. 
While the specific structure of the organism is an essential 
condition in sense perspectives, no physiologist would be 
deceived by his prejudice into conceiving it as the sole 
determinant. It does not matter if in turn we express the 
external variables as sense-aspects. Even if we conceive 
matter as a class of sense aspects, it still holds that light 
rays curve in relation to the group of sense-aspects which 
we call matter and independently of the group of sense- 
aspects we call the percipient organism, and that our per- 
spective of ight varies accordingly. But matter for us is 
more than a group of sense-aspects. 

We may say that our knowledge of reality, in the chunk 
of duration which we call the present, consists in the sys- 
tem of perspectives of which we can take account. But 


308 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


we must enquire more closely into the nature of perspec- 
tives. Our immediate data of physical nature consist of 
sense perspectives, including the various senses. Nature 
is what it appears to be in our sense perspectives. But all 
actual and possible sense perspectives would not give us 
all the perspectives of nature. For sense perspectives are 
only one class of perspectives where an organism of a cer- 
tain complexity is the receptor reagent. We must recog- 
nize perspectives which are independent, at any rate of 
our experience. The earth rotates while we are asleep and 
brings the periodicities of day and night. The vast perspec- 
tives with which the geologist and palewontologist deal’are 
discovered, not created by them. The processes of growth 
and decay take place in nature whether we watch them 
or not. Even though we do watch them, we cannot fol- 
low their transitions. We perceive end-terms and inter- 
polate the transitions. In other words the chunks of dura- 
tion in which we perceive the external perspectives of 
nature are not the chunks in which they happen in nature. 
We, therefore, must eke out our sense perspectives with 
other actual perspectives. Since these are not directly 
sensed we may speak of them as implied perspectives. We 
must infer these perspectives in order to give a coherent 
account of the perspectives of sense. 

The scientist has the advantage in two respects over the 
ordinary man in watching nature. In the first place, he 
equips himself with instruments which can respond to 
minute differences in nature in a way our senses cannot. 
He can provide himself with certain physical media such 
as lenses. He can construct interferometers that will meas- 
ure the intensity and frequency of light-waves. In other 
words, he can arrange certain physical perspectives of 
nature to eke out his limited sense perspectives. But this 
arrangement would not be possible except for another 
advantage, the scientist’s intellectual equipment, his 
cumulative preparation in the way of concepts, his sys- 
tematic guessing at nature’s perspectives and his check- 
ing up of these guesses in terms of the differences that 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 359 


nature’s perspectives make to sense perception. If he 
succeeds in verifying his sketch of the course of events in 
nature, then his anticipation, however artificial, must be 
at any rate an approximation to the implied perspectives 
of nature. Astronomers did not actually perceive the 
curvature of light in the vicinity of the sun, but they 
photographed stars in the vicinity of the sun during an 
eclipse, then compared their apparent position during the 
eclipse with photographs taken when the sun was not 
in the neighbourhood, and found that the former implied 
the predicted curvature. In order to account for certain 
end-terms in his sense perspectives of nature, the scientist 
has conceived movements of molecules, atoms, and elec- 
trons which he far beyond the range of his senses, even 
when equipped with microscopes. Yet the course of nature 
seems to imply some such constitution. 

The properties in the implied perspectives of nature are 
not sense properties, even when the external energies are 
the same as those that figure in sense perspectives. The 
effects of light on inorganic matter or on plant life are not 
the same as on our differentiated sensory system, though 
the various wave-lengths have their characteristic effect in 
either case. Light and gravity are important factors in 
the symmetrical growth of our own organism, but we do 
not sense these effects. The pressure on iron does not give 
rise to pressure sensations, though if it is of sufficient 
amount it will restrain the atoms of iron within a smaller 
volume and thus alter our sense perspectives. Further- 
more, the implied perspectives in nature indicate ener- 
gies for which we have no corresponding sense receptors—— 
infra-red, ultra violet, X-rays, to use illustrations from 
the domain of light. It is because of the implied proper- 
ties of these in the perspectives of nature that we have 
been able to discover them and make use of them. We 
must take account, therefore, of the properties of nature 
in the variety of nature’s implied perspectives, as well as 
in our sense perspectives. The perspectives implied in 
the combustion of coal are incommensurable with the per- 


360 COSMIU EVOLUTION 


spectives of our organism in the sensing of heat, though in 
certain chunks the changes of combustion may act on a 
percipient organism and be sensed as heat. But the 
changes of combustion will go on whether there is a per- 
cipient organism or not and produce characteristic physical 
changes, as they did in geologic ages before man appeared 
and still do. The house may be struck by lightning and 
burn down while you are absent. It is not a question of 
reality as between our sense perspectives and implied per- 
spectives in nature. They are equally actual, equally real, 
but they are different and hence their properties are 
different. 

We sometimes speak of the perspectives of nature as 
conditional perspectives. By this we emphasize that they 
do not occur unless all the factors which mediate them 
are present. There is a knee-reflex, but it does not occur 
unless there is the proper stimulus, such as a sharp blow 
or an electric current. I do not now sense red or sweet, 
but J can establish relations with certain stimuli which 
will bring about the perspectives of red and sweet. In 
this general sense all perspectives are conditional. It is 
true of implied perspectives as well as of sense perspec- 
tives. Sometimes the conditions for implied perspectives 
are within our control. We can vary them at will and 
observe the results of the variation. This is the great 
advantage of experimental science. Sometimes the proc- 
esses of nature are on too vast a scale in complexity, space 
or time for our human control, and we must watch nature’s 
experimentation and try to decipher its factors as best we 
can. We can arrange the conditions for combining hydro- 
gen and oxygen into water, but we cannot do so with proto- 
plasm, and we must be spectators of eclipses and earth- 
quakes. 

The above use of conditional is not to be confused with 
the special sense in which the physiologist uses the term 
“conditioned response,” as for example the “conditioned 
reflex.” This has to do with the substitution of stimuli 
where a stimulus which is associated with the primary 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 361 


stimulation becomes a sign of the primary stimulation. 
Thus if, when we stimulate the secretion of the salivary 
glands of a dog by putting food into his mouth, we ring a 
bell at the same time, we find that afterwards the mere 
sound of the bell becomes an adequate stimulus to pro- 
duce the flow of saliva. The secondary stimulus comes 
to imply the presence of the primary stimulus. But in 
either case we deal with sense-perspectives. This prin- 
ciple of substitution can be extended indefinitely in the 
learning process of a human being where words come to 
figure largely as secondary stimuli. But we have here to 
do, not with primary perspectives, but with secondary 
perspectives. 

We speak of some conditional perspectives as possible 
perspectives and say that nature is what it appears in the 
system of actual and possible perspectives. But the term 
possible is ambiguous. Certainly some conditional per- 
spectives are not now possible. Some conditional perspec- 
tives are only possible when we take account of time. I 
saw a large elm when it was a tiny seedling, but the per- 
spective of it as a tiny seedling is not possible in my pres- 
ent chunk of experience. It now functions actually as a 
large elm whether in the perspective of my sense percep- 
tion or in the physical environment. The perspective of 
the tiny seedling is indeed implied in the present elm, for 
this exists only in a history of perspectives. But the per- 
spective of twenty years ago is not possible in the present 
chunk of duration, at any rate as our experience measures 
duration. It is conditional upon our placing ourselves 
and nature in the perspective of twenty years ago. The 
perspectives of geological and paleontological history while 
temporally implied and part of the definition of our earth 
are not now possible to our sense perception. They are 
inferences from the record which we do perceive. 

The case is even more difficult when we deal with future 
perspectives—perspectives conditioned upon the creative 
passage of nature. I cannot agree with Bertrand Russell 
that “it is a mere accident that we have no memory of the 


362 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


future’ and that “the apparent indeterminateness of the 
future . . . is merely the result of our ignorance.” ** 
A fundamental difficulty with Russell’s conception of real- 
ity is that it ignores what Whitehead so aptly calls the 
creative passage of nature. Russell seems bound to the 
conception of “nature at an instant” from the structure 
of which we are supposed to be able to read the past and 
future alike. This is the classical conception of nature, 
before the theory of relativity. But now we have learned 
that we must take account of time as well as space, that 
one system of perspectives of nature is not sufficient to 
characterize nature, but that we require an indefinite num- 
ber of versions of nature. Russell recognizes that “we can- 
not define a perspective as all the data of one percipient 
at one time, because we wish to allow for possibility of 
perspectives which are not perceived by anyone.” ** But 
he seems to think that we can state the relation of any 
particular with reference to nature by means of the con- 
ception of simultaneity. He would define the perspective 
to which a given particular belongs as ‘all particulars 
simultaneous with the given particular.’*’ In other 
words, he seems to think that nature can be defined as a 
system of perspectives at an instant of time. Of course 
in that case our inability to remember the future would be 
an accident of our ignorance, since the future would exist 
in the present instant. But does a certain aspect of nature 
belong with simultaneous any more than with successive 
aspects? ae 

The theory of relativity has brought home to us that 
perspectives of nature are space-time perspectives. In other 
words history must enter into our definition of reality. 
Russell’s statement that “complete knowledge would 
embrace the future as well as the past” *° is still formally 
true, but it 1s materially impossible. Past, present, and 


*® Scientific Method in Philosophy, p. 234. 
res Musee and Logic, p. 140. 

EDI. Dea Lal 

1° Scientific Method in Philosophy, p. 234. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 363 


future cannot be projected on one plane. An event hap- 
pening now in a distant star may be thousands of years in 
the future to man’s perceptual perspective. The fact is 
that, in the actual world, the interaction of various histor- 
ies in the cosmos, and therefore the correlation of these 
histories in our system of knowledge, requires time as well 
as space. They do not interact instantaneously and there- 
fore cannot be correlated in an instant. And in each his- 
tory the quality of the creative advance cannot be ascer- 
tained except by waiting. Furthermore the span of dura- 
tion in different histories varies and we must take account 
of these chunks of duration in order to understand nature. 
The laws of nature hold for such chunks. The laws of 
physical nature have a considerable span, but they are 
not eternal. The abstract characteristics of system may be 
eternal as Willard Gibbs holds. But the concrete charac- 
teristics of systems depend upon the constancy of certain 
conditions of temperature, pressure, electromagnetic 
field, etc., as W. K. Clifford clearly pointed out. For the 
brief span of human science they may be constant. Ten 
thousand years in the life of a star may make no 
perceptible difference. The anatomy of man may not have 
varied in ten thousand years, though the history of human 
civilization has varied enormously. Of course the seem- 
ing stability of physical nature may be due primarily to 
the coarseness of our perception. We know it varies 
over long periods and sometimes it varies catastrophically. 
The catastrophical character of such variations may be due 
to our dulness in following nature’s transitions. We know 
this is often true in human evolution. But be the chunks 
of duration larger or smaller, the temporal character of 
all perspectives is an empirical fact. The structure of 
reality is a space-time structure and cannot be truly under- 
stood without taking its temporal character into account. 
It is true that we may ignore the temporal character for 
certain purposes. The user of coal, and even the experi- 
menter with the properties of coal, may take coal as it is. 


364 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


But the geologist knows that the present perspective of 
coal with its properties is a chunk of a long history and 
that the end of the history is not yet. 

We may conceive the span of consciousness as varying in 

different individuals and under different conditions. We 
know, as a matter of fact, that it expands and contracts 
within our experience. It has been maintained that con- 
sciousness under certain conditions is vastly lengthened, 
as in so-called clairvoyant states, and that in such a span 
the future can be perceived as present, but the evidence 
for such states cannot be said to be conclusive. At any 
-yrate, the chunk of duration of such states would presum- 
ably be limited though it excels the average. It was 
suggested by Josiah Royce that the Absolute has an infi- 
nite span of consciousness and that to such a being the 
past, present and future would exist at once. He did not, 
however, deny the temporal values within such a con- 
sciousness. There would still be unique order and novelty 
within that order as in the movement of the symphony or, 
better still, as in the number order. For us finites there 
would be, as now, the creative passing of nature and an 
indeterminate future. But we may dismiss the clairvoyant 
and the Absolute for lack of evidence. It is true, however, 
that the future somehow is an outgrowth of the past and 
therefore the order of the past cannot be indifferent to it. 
The order of the past, moreover, must get its significance 
from its relation to the future. It appears that there is a 
nisus, a drift in space-time. To use the inspired words 
of Alexander: “There is a nisus in Space-Time which, as 
it has borne its creatures forward through matter and life 
to mind will bear them forward to some higher level of 
existence.” *" If there is such a nisus, then some minds 
under certain conditions may be sensitive to this nisus as 
others are not. We know that some poets and prophets 
feel the drift of events when the mass are locked in the 
crust of custom. But while we may thus feel the nisus, 
the dynamic intersection of lines of motion, it is still true 

*7 Space, Time and Deity, Vol. II, p. 346. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 365 


that it is felt as future. At any rate the actuality when 
it comes has a quality of its own which cannot be foreseen. 
It involves a creative synthesis which, while conditioned 
by the past duration, is not a mere arithmetical sum of the 
characteristics of the determining conditions. Even when 
histories seem to repeat cycles, as when the child lives 
over the life cycle of its parent or when different cosmic 
histories repeat corresponding cycles, so that what seems 
future to a world like Alexander’s may seem past to a 
world of greater range of development, it is still true, as 
we know, that the repetition in the concrete is a repetition 
with variations, the correspondence is in generic features. 
Hence perspectives from more advanced histories cannot 
read the concrete future, the real quality of the passage 
of nature in other histories. Even an overarching system 
of perspectives which surveys the various histories from 
the climax of cosmic evolution would still have to take 
account of novelties in the concrete, however complete 
its provision in the abstract. So it seems from our moving 
part perspective. In other words, so far as we can com- 
prehend, there is no complete definition of reality in the 
concrete. 

The perspectives of sense are finite perspectives. Their 
local space-time is finite and their variations of qualities 
and intensities are by finite quanta. Throughout the 
domain of sense Weber’s law holds, not Leibnitz’s concep- 
tion of infinitesimal correspondence between stimulus and 
sense perception. Sense perspectives have their threshold 
below which we have no sense perception, and above this 
threshold the stimulus must increase by a quantum, which 
is finite and relative to the standard of comparison. It 
is not empirically true, either within any one experience 
or as between individuals, that “between two perspectives 
which are similar, we can Imagine a whole series of other 
perspectives, some at least unperceived, and such that 
between any two, however similar, there are others still 
more similar.” ** There are not an infinite number of 

*® Bertrand Russell, Sczentific Method in Philosophy, p. 88. 


366 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


sense perspectives of light, for example, as would follow 
from this theory. A colour as sensed does not, necessarily, 
correspond to even a single vibration rate. It may corre- 
spond to a span of different wave-lengths. For instance, 
red is practically the same in appearance from 440 trillion 
‘to 460 trillion vibrations a second. The correspondence in 
any case is finite. We do not in fact have an infinite num- 
ber of colour perspectives. We must here adopt the prin- 
ciple of Leibnitz that what is indistinguishable is the same. 
Now between any two hues of blue we cannot distinguish 
an infinite number of hues of blue. If we select the hues 
in a certain way, we cannot distinguish any intermediary 
hues. The gradations of just distinguishable hues can be 
so arranged as to seem a continuous series, and yet they 
are very finite. It seems the human organism can dis- 
tinguish from 150 to 160 different daylight hues. It can 
also distinguish about 700 different greys from white to 
black. As colour perspectives vary also with the intensity 
of the stimulus, we must add these perspectives. The 
number of distinguishable visual perspectives, including 
the variations in brightness and the various hues and tints 
of colour, has been estimated from 33,000 upward. But 
this is far from infinity. It is dangerous to let the mathe- 
matician loose in psychology. 

The perspectives of light are not, of course, limited to 
sense perspectives. We must also take account of the 
interactions of light with the various structures outside 
our sense perspectives. These are implied perspectives. 
Light and radiant heat have been important agencies in 
fashioning the history of the earth from the beginning. 
We know from the researches of Planck that the radia- 
tions of light and all other radiant energies come in finite 
quanta. Electron radiation is also of the quantum type; 
and the relation between the two types of radiant energy 
follows the quantum law. Atomic matter exists in definite 
quanta. While it is too soon, perhaps, to generalize, we 
may say that an increasing number of the perspectives of 
physical nature are found to be of the quantum type, 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 367 


while we do not know that any relations in nature are of 
the type required by the mathematical concepts of con- 
tinuity and infinity. Hence we should be cautious about 
introducing our mathematical concepts into nature. The 
spaces and durations of nature seem to be finite chunks. 
They are not perspectives from mathematical points and 
instants any more than they are perspectives of mathe- 
matical points and instants. 

It should further be borne in mind that local space and 
local time are not subjective. They are relations in nature. 
It may be possible for more than one observer to occupy 
a specific local space-time in nature, 2.e., to occupy the 
same frame of reference. Two or more observers may 
perceive the same phenomenon in nature. They may 
watch the same experiment by one looking over another’s 
shoulder. They may take account of the same eclipse, 
1.€., the perspective may be indistinguishable as shown, 
for example, by photographs. Of course, in the case of 
touch we cannot actually occupy one another’s space, 2.e., 
we cannot touch the same thing at the same time. But 
we can, even here, occupy the same frame of reference in 
nature successively. We can exchange spaces and we can 
exchange durations. This means merely that, within cer- 
tain finite chunks, the structure of nature can be taken 
as uniform. Else we could have no science. In order to 
have science, it must be possible, within the duration of 
nature, to repeat our experiments and for different observ- 
ers to check up one another’s observations and experi- 
ments. We demand in natural science that the relevant 
conditions shall be repeatable, and that, if these conditions 
are the same, the perceptual perspectives shall be the 
same. Within what chunks of nature our perspectives 
can be taken as the same must be ascertained empirically, 
following the principle that what is indistinguishable is 
the same. Two observers have the same colour when they 
point to the same colour. Two listeners hear the same 
note when they can repeat the same note. Our compari- 
son of similarities is possible because we can occupy the 


368 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


same chunks of duration in nature. Of course if the 
observations are successive they cannot be the same by 
clock time, but the chunks of duration of nature are not 
controlled by the movements of our clocks. So far as the 
‘ laws of the physical processes of nature are concerned, 
their span of duration is so large that we can take it to be 
constant for the purposes of our observation, provided we 
specify our frame of reference. Our quantitative units are 
practically stable within the same frame of reference. The 
earth-clock varies perhaps 1/1000 of a second in a century 
owing to tidal retardation, but this does not matter so 
long as our clocks agree. 


Primary Perspectives and Secondary Perspectives 

We have so far been concerned with primary perspec- 
tives—sense perspectives and perspectives which these 
imply as conditions of their existence and character. But 
we must also take account of another type of perspec- 
tives—those which have to do with substitution of stimuli 
and responses, with signs which owe their implication to 
the psychological history of the responding individual, 
which in turn implies the relation of the individual to the 
social group with its traditions, since it is only in social 
relations that words originate. We may lay it down as a 
principle that the rate of motion and the characteristics 
of the secondary perspectives do not as such directly affect 
the primary perspectives of nature, including the sense 
perspectives. Our taking account of nature does not alter 
nature, though we may alter nature through our executive 
relation to it and by so doing indirectly alter the perspec- 
tives of nature. Our faith may affect the circulation of 
the blood and the secretion of glands, and thus alter our 
organic sense perspectives, but our awareness of the 
organic stimuli does not alter them. We may by our 
executive control over nature change its physical contour, 
but our perceiving it does not alter it. The primary per- 
spectives are events in nature, while the secondary per- 
spectives, our judgements and interpretations of nature, 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 369 


are events in our personal history. The secondary per- 
spectives do not affect the qualities of nature, but they 
affect the significance and value of nature. Our sense 
perspectives may indeed be affected by the history of our 
organism. Our senses become dull in old age. But this 
is not due to the psychological history of the observer, 
but to the physical history of the observer. A man’s 
judgement has not necessarily deteriorated because he must 
wear spectacles. 

Secondary perspectives involve a type of duration which 
we do not recognize in physical nature, viz. “mnemic 
causation,” 7.e., cumulative duration in the sense of habit 
and memory. Secondary perspectives are not independent 
of the primary perspectives in the sense that the 
latter are independent of the former. Secondary perspec- 
tives presuppose sense perspectives as data for interpreta- 
tion. Secondary perspectives also presuppose, within the 
present personal existence, the organic cycle of nature 
with its complicated structure and its specific span of 
duration. But they have in turn a certain independence 
of the primary perspectives. They are not mere functions 
of the course of physical nature, tied to its routine. Sec- 
ondary perspectives are creative relations to nature, and 
so are the artificial sections into which we divide nature 
the better to observe and control it. Secondary perspec- 
tives are suggestions to nature, even though they may err 
in these suggestions. They single out the relevant aspects 
from the mass of primary perspectives. They, in short, 
enable us to see meaning and appreciate value in nature. 
The secondary perspectives, therefore, add a realm of 
great richness to the life of nature. We may call this the 
realm of mind. We cannot give a complete account of the 
perspectives of reality without including mental perspec: 
tives. They are, in a broad sense, part of the functioning 
of nature. It is misleading to speak of nature as closed 
to mind. What this means, presumably, is that the pri- 
mary perspectives of nature are not functions of our 
psychological history. Their existence and character are 


370 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


independent of our interpretation. If this were not so, 
we should have no science of nature. But in the matrix 
of reality, nature is not closed to mind, nor mind to nature. 
Nature is open to mind in the cognitive sense that nature 
must appear in mental perspectives—the perspectives of 
meaning and value. Nature is also open to mind on the 
executive side, since mental patterns are energies, effective 
not only in adapting the organism to nature, but to a cer- 
tain extent in making over nature, redistributing its 
energies into new ensembles, whether in the realm of sub- 
jective systems of value or in the realm of objective recon- 
struction, as in mechanics and art. 

A great deal has been written about the privacy of indi- 
vidual experience. This point of view finds its extreme 
statement in Leibnitz’s windowless monads. Bertrand 
Russell seems to follow Leibnitz in this respect: 


What we call the different appearances of the same 
thing to different observers are each in a space private 
to the observer concerned. No place in the private 
world of one observer is identical with the private 
world of another observer. There is therefore no 
question of combining different appearances in the 
one place.*” | 


There seems to be here first of all a confusion between 
primary perspectives and secondary perspectives. We 
have seen as regards primary perspectives, viz., sense per- 
spectives and implied perspectives, that we can occupy one 
another’s frame of reference or space-time. We can 
observe the same perspectives simultaneously or succes- 
sively in nature. Otherwise we could have no description. 
We can also occupy different frames of reference. We 
must, then, take account of the difference in the charac- 
teristics of perspectives when observed from another frame 
of reference. If our perspectives of nature were absolutely 
private there would be no way of comparing the similari- 
ties of simultaneous or successive perspectives of different 

*® Mysticism and Logic, pp. 153, 154. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 371 


observers and hence no way of correlating these perspec- 
tives into a common order of nature. Yet Russell assumes 
the possibility of such comparison and correlation. 


Two men are sometimes found to perceive very 
similar perspectives, so similar that they can use the 
same words to describe them. In case the similarity 
is very great we say the points of view of the two 
perspectives are near together in space; but this space 
in which they are near together is totally different 
from the spaces inside the two perspectives. It is a 
relation between the perspectives and is not in either 
of them; no one can perceive it, and if it is to be 
known it can be known only by inference.” 


But how could two such solipsistic observers communi- 
cate by language and inference? Communication is pos- 
sible because we find that our responses are the same 
to the same situations. We are able to use the same 
measures within the same frame of reference. If we are 
given a series of colour cards we arrange them in the same 
order. If we do not so arrange them, our difference is 
noted, and we are classed as some type of colour blind. 
We ascertain the aberrations of sense instruments in the 
same way that we ascertain the aberrations in other phys- 
ical instruments. It 1s because we respond the same way 
within nature that we can conceive an order as common 
to us. 

We live objectively and socially. It is an after- 
thought—and a rather modern after-thought—to differen- 
tiate our personal history from our interactions with one 
another and with physical nature. When we do make 
this differentiation we find that the sense perspectives 
and the implied perspectives of nature are independent 
of our personal histories. Or rather, it is the discovery 
that the situations in which we interact do not vary with 
our personal histories, which leads us to distinguish be- 
tween primary and secondary perspectives. Secondary per- 

?° Scientific Method in Philosophy, p. 88. 


372 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


spectives are abstractions from our integral relations to 
nature. We start with the objective interactions, and later, 
if ever, we become abstract psychologists. If we started 
with absolutely private spaces and times, we should never 
be able to ascertain similarities and differences in one an- 
-other’s perspectives unless we had some power of clair- 
voyance peculiar to such people as Leibnitz and Russell. 
It is true of course that we cannot live inside one another’s 
skin, but neither do other interacting entities in nature. 
The important thing is that we can occupy the same objec- 
tive spaces and times, 7.e., that we can live in the same 
frames of reference in nature. Our sense perspectives are 
physiologically projected with reference to an order of 
nature in which we must interact, and afterwards we come 
to recognize these relations in a halting way in our sec- 
ondary perspectives of meaning. 

We have tried to make clear that the supposed privacy 
of perspectives does not hold in regard to the primary 
perspectives of nature. Our sense perspectives can be 
investigated by the objective methods that we use in the 
physical sciences. It is not necessary to bring in the 
conception of a private consciousness in investigating 
sense facts. It is when we come to deal with secondary 
perspectives, with signs and their meaning, that the per- 
sonal history of the individual becomes important. Are 
these personal histories absolutely closed to one another? 
Or are they only relatively closed, in the sense that physi- 
cal things have properties which are not revealed in a 
specific perspective? There is more to the individual 
organization than can appear in any one perspective. 
There is also something unique in the response of the 
individual organization which must be taken into account 
as a fact of experience and cannot be predicted a priori; 
but this can be said also of the reactions of physical com- 
pounds. What seems peculiar to personal histories is that 
they are capable of a cumulative realization and of selec- 
tive reaction on the basis of this cumulative individual 
history. But the character of this individual history 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 373 


appears in reactions to the common situations in the envi- 
ronment and, therefore, is not absolutely private. Our 
responses to common situations are integral responses, 
involving the whole history of the individual, mental as 
well as physiological. The mind of the individual is not 
outside these responses, but gives them their unique qual- 
ity. Just as life is not something back of living behaviour 
and isolated from it, but is a unique quality of living 
behaviour, so mind is not something isolated from minded 
behaviour but is a unique quality of such behaviour, and 
known as such. 

The privacy of mind is a fiction of an abstract psy- 
chology. Abstract thought created the false dichotomy of 
mind and nature; and, once having isolated mind from 
nature, made it more and more ghostlike and unreal, 
until finally mind has disappeared from _ psychology. 
Behaviourism consistently confines its description to phys- 
iological reactions and consigns the unreal sideshow 
which it inherited from the past to limbo where it belongs. 
But behaviourism has ignored the mental level of control 
and reaction. We cannot state human behaviour, at any 
rate, in merely physiological terms. It is only when we 
come to recognize through the dialectic of events that 
intersubjective relations are real interactions which must 
be included if we would give a complete account of 
behaviour that psychology will have a real place among 
the sciences of nature. This dialectic is working itself out 
by the necessity of giving an account of expression. Lan- 
guage is the dominating form of expression, though it is 
not the only one. We have also the more primitive types 
of physiological expression—the reactions involving the 
large musculature. We have the expressive media of art 
and technical construction. We can, as a matter of fact, 
give a very considerable account of human history before 
any language records are available through the technical 
products of man, such as tools, pottery and architecture. 
We can establish a serial order, with distinct epochs of 
development, in primitive civilizations where no language 


374 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


records exist; and we can trace the intercrossings of races 
and cultures. But language vastly increases our knowl- 
edge of human perspectives and their interrelations. All 
forms of social co-operation depend largely upon language. 
The cumulative control of the environment has been made 
possible by tradition; and tradition without language as 
we observe it in the higher animals must remain rudi- 
mentary. Man’s personal perspectives have been largely 
controlled by social perspectives. The solipsistic man is a 
figment of philosophers. Could a man know that he had 
blue spectacles if he did=not touch them? Perhaps not 
in a solipsistic world. But in our real world of interac- 
tions, we become aware of our idiosyncrasies, including 
blue spectacles, through our social relations. In fact, it is 
only in social relations that mental perspectives are pos- 
sible. Social relations, including language, are as truly 
the medium of mental perspectives as air is the medium 
of sound. 

It is because we can share the secondary or mental 
perspectives that we can have such co-operative enter- 
prises as art and industry, not to speak of other co-opera- 
tive enterprises. We can understand one another’s plans 
and meanings from our behaviour to the common situa- 
tions in nature. We can do this to some degree even 
without language, as some of us have learned who have 
travelled in countries where we did not understand the 
language. But we cannot establish any large co-operation 
without the use of descriptive language. We learn, more- 
over, to recognize that there is a difference in our second- 
ary perspectives even when we act on common situations, 
and therefore we cannot say that the same stimulus will 
_ have the same effect on one individual as on another or on 
one individual at different times, though the organic char- 
acteristics of the individuals may seem constant. Hence 
the conduct of animals is more easily predicted than that 
of man. This difference in predictability is due to our 
ignorance of the personal history of the human individual. 
In animals, secondary perspectives play little part. Hence 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 375 


their conduct is comparatively easy to predict. But 
human behaviour is also predictable to a considerable 
extent. Meanings which relate to objective situations can 
be shared in the objective reference of signs. And on the 
structural side, the perspectives of thought are not so 
different but that we can discover a common procedure. 
These universal characteristics in the procedure of 
thought we abstract as logic. In the case of valuation 
the emphasis is more on the subjective organization or the 
personal history. Yet feelings and emotions as primary 
levels are highly contagious: they tend to arouse similar 
feelings and emotions in others. And even on the level 
of secondary perspectives there is some agreement in our 
valuations or we could have neither economic exchange 
nor art. Of course the correspondence of our personal his- 
tories both as regards meanings and values is due to our 
being part of a group with its controlling tradition. What 
we must not forget is that subjective perspectives do not 
exist in isolation from nature, but are creative adaptations 
of man to the cosmos. The trial and error process involved 
in creative imagination is different from that of inorganic 
and mere organic adaptation, but it is as genuinely a 
type of adaptation as they. Secondary perspectives are 
the result of social interaction, and therefore cannot be 
absolutely private, though we all recognize that they have 
a certain relative privacy. The reason that they seem 
more private than the primary perspectives is that they 
vary not only with the primary perspectives, but with the 
personal and variant history of the participants. We 
cannot, therefore, predict with the same certainty that 
an individual under given conditions will have a specific 
secondary perspective as we can predict that he will have 
a specific primary perspective. 

It is through social relations that we are able to estab- 
lish any considerable degree of correlation of perspectives 
within our experience. The correlation of the senses with 
each other is indeed effected for us on the primary level 
by means of habit. When we begin to reflect, the order 


376 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


of impressions in the sense of touch has already been 
correlated or identified with the order of the sense of 
sight, and the other sensations have been located in the 
space of touch and sight, or rather, in a normal person, 
in the space of sight. This correlation is functional, 2.e., 
through our acting upon the external world on the basis 
of our sense perspectives. That our sense perspectives 
imply an external order of events is a conviction, which 1s 
presupposed in secondary perspectives. Seeing is believ- 
ing and so is all presence to the senses. The lowest animal 
has no doubt that the sénse adjustments guide it to its 
food or away from a noxious external stimulus. The 
projection implied here may therefore be treated as 
organic. But outside of the correlations which we share 
with the humblest animals there are large classes of cor- 
relations involving judgement, thought and valuation. 
These are secondary or mental correlations of perspectives 
and these involve social relations. It is through social 
relations that we come to have the concept of a common 
objective order, with its correlation of perceptual per- 
spectives and implied perspectives, in which we live and 
act. It must be noted that it is not the existence of the 
order of nature, but the recognition of it, the concept of 
it, which depends upon social interaction. It is the exist- 
ence of it which forces the recognition of it. The order 
of nature is not a function of social participation, as 
Durkheim seems to think. But our knowledge of the 
order of nature is the result of social co-operation. We 
live in the order of nature and society before we become 
conscious of the significance of the fact. Then by the 
pressure of events in our common life we come to recognize 
this order. If we were really isolated in our living, we 
should never dream of establishing a common order in 
thought. The fact is, of course, we should not think if 
it were not for the problems arising from our interactions 
with fellowman and nature. And if it were not for lan- 
guage, which is the product of our need for communica- 
tion, thought would remain at best rudimentary. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 377 


Mental perspectives are adjustments, or attempted 
adjustments, of man first of all to his fellowman and in 
co-operation with him to physical nature. We attempt to 
discover the meaning of our environment. We do not 
desire merely to live in interaction with it—the physical 
things and the animals below us do that—but we strive 
to retrace the perspectives of nature in our perspectives of 
meaning. We strive to discover significant relations— 
relations which we can employ as signs of other relations 
and thus anticipate and to a certain extent control nature, 
or at any rate our conduct within nature, on the basis 
of our experience. In so doing we are ever discovering 
new implications in the perspectives of nature, which 
enable us to correlate more of the facts of nature within 
our schemes of signs. Our secondary perspectives are at 
best abstract compared to the wealth of nature, but in this 
abstractness lies their convenience. For the most part 
they are but rough approximations to the order of nature, 
but they can only prove useful in so far as they are to 
some extent approximations. And in the process of crea- 
tive adaptation we strive to make our secondary perspec- 
tives more adequate signs of the primary. We arrive at 
truth in so far as we conceive the relations in the situation 
of nature which our interest selects as they are in nature. 
Even though our purpose may be to reconstruct nature, 
we must first learn nature’s ways. And pure knowledge 
has its own value, aside from practical ends. It is hardly 
necessary to add that many of our guesses at connections 
in nature prove to be spurious additions to nature and 
fail to survive. At best, truth is a trial and error process 
with only gradual and partial approximation. 

We have seen that on the physiological and unconscious 
plane, the organism, as a result of the trial and error proc- 
ess of biological adaptation, responds by a native cerebral 
schema to the world of energies in space and time. But 
on the plane of creative thought we try to recreate in the 
world of social concepts the common order of nature. It 
is thus that we build up the constructs of a common space 


378 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


order and a common time order. This we substitute for 
the world of primary perspectives and forget perhaps that 
it is derivative, until some genius comes along who points 
out to us that our abstractions are only approximations. 
In our adjustments we learn that there are various per- 
sonal perspectives which have their own sequence and 
their own characteristics, even though for some purposes 
they converge with our own perspectives upon common 
objectives. We learn, too, that in nature there are mul- 
tiple structures, each with its characteristic complexity 
and its space-time pattern. A star figures not only in 
the perspectives, primary and secondary, of our experience. 
But it has a structure and history of its own, with its 
own perspective relations of parts and aspects to one 
another and to the cosmos. Or, to take a nearer illustra- 
tion: a tree figures not only in our perspectives of sense 
and our perspectives of meaning, but it implies also a his- 
tory of its own with perspective relations of the parts 
and aspects to each other within this history and its rela- 
tions to the environment. By thus following the perspec- 
tives of nature and their interrelations in ever more com- 
prehensive histories, we are able to extend the correlation 
of signs in our conceptual scheme. 

Truth, error, and illusion alike have their ground in 
the use of certain aspects as signs of other aspects. Errors 
and illusions, as well as true judgements, are events in 
nature in the sense that they happen. They are efforts 
at adaptation just as are true judgements. The error or 
illusion in our meaning does not lie in the aspects that 
are present In our primary perspectives, but in their sup- 
posed implications in our secondary perspectives. Illusions 
are not confined to the supposed implications of sense 
perspectives. They may also have to do with implied 
primary perspectives. If a physician takes the tempera- 
ture of the body as a sign of health, he may find that 
while the thermometer responds normally, the patient 
fails to recover. In illusions of recognition the appearance 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 379 


of a certain group of aspects is in accordance with nature. 
The association of these aspects with certain other aspects 
of a thing or a person is also in accordance with nature, 
for habit is part of nature. It is in the taking of certain 
aspects as signs of certain other aspects in our present 
relation to nature that we are sometimes mistaken and 
consequently have illusions. Such mistaken implication 
may vary all the way from ordinary cases of misplaced 
recognition at a distance, to mistaking a disturbance in 
the ear for the voice of a supernatural being. Illusions 
are due, therefore, to secondary perspectives. ‘There is 
nothing illusory in the crooked visual appearance of the 
stick as seen in the water. The illusion lies in any one’s 
taking this appearance as a sign of a crooked touch-aspect 
in the water. Touch and sight are different perspectives 
subject to different conditions, including the medium in 
each case, and there is no reason a priori why they should 
coincide. It has sometimes been said that touch is not 
a perspective sense, while sight is. This is not physiologi- 
cally true. Physiologically the qualities of touch with 
their superficial and deeper strata are complex perspec- 
tives. As figuring in our perception they imply successive 
selection and discrimination on the part of the hierarchical 
central nervous system as well as the specific changes in 
the end-organs. They also imply projection to the space- 
time stimuli which act upon the organism. But the per- 
spectives of sight and touch are governed by different laws. 
They never hold in the same respect, since an object 
which should touch the retina could not be seen. In 
visual perspectives, moreover, we must take account of 
the properties of the various media through whieh light 
passes, while the medium in touch—the intervening cells 
through which the end organs are stimulated—is normally 
constant in any one part of the surface layer. In the case 
of the stick which is seen as bent in the water, the per- 
spective must be different because of the medium which 
refracts the light. In the end, the only way we have of 


380 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


arriving at truth in regard to the complex relations of na- 
ture is by the correlation of perspectives and of properties 
as aspects of perspectives. 

Science and philosophy are both concerned with the cor- 
relation of aspects, the saving of appearances, to use a 
~ phrase of Plato’s.** But the sciences, owing to the necessity 
for division of labour, divide the appearances into types, 
and each science investigates a specific class of appear- 
ances. ‘The danger is that the scientist, owing to the limi- 
tations of his interest, often treats the class of appearances 
which he investigates as*isolated, and not only neglects 
but, perhaps, denies the claim of other aspects of nature. 
The scientist who is preoccupied with physical perspectives 
may neglect mental perspectives. Philosophy should be 
an attempt to correlate perspectives into a whole of reality. 
It should attempt not only to save the appearances of 
nature but to show their relation to each other. Philoso- 
phy should be indeed, as Plato defined it, the love of the 
wholeness of things both human and divine. And, as 
Plato so truly recognized, this is sanity, whether in science 
or statesmanship. For it is not sane to emphasize certain 
aspects in isolation as though they were the whole. So 
long as we do this we live in a cave of self-deception. We 
cannot see the real implication even of the aspects which 
we do recognize. ‘To see sanely and live sanely is indeed 
a difficult matter and beyond the possibility of attainment 
in our limited span of life. But it is the striving for sanity 
which must shed meaning, however fragmentarily, upon 
our task. | 

It is true that if we arbitrarily limited philosophy to 
certain abstract aspects of reality we might make a better 
showing at being scientific. There has been a tendency 
of late to identify philosophy with formal logic and formal 
mathematics. Philosophy on this view becomes a sort of 
abstract lexicography. Not that I mean to minimize the 


** The conception of philosophy Be the saving of appearances has 
been well set forth by Professor R. F. A. Hoernle in Studies in Con- 
temporary Metaphysics, 1920. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 381 


importance of formal definitions. But the fact is that if 
we limit our mind to such formal interests we shall be 
living in a cave far more closed than that of the natural 
sciences, where the human mind is at present breaking 
through age long prejudices, with a new respect for appear- 
ances and a conscientious effort to find schemes of corre- 
lation more adequate to the order of nature. Philosophy 
must become what it aimed to be, in the great Greek 
period, an enormous induction of reality. In its effort 
to envisage reality as a cosmic whole, it is both the cor- 
rection and poetry of science. It cannot afford to neglect 
the aspects emphasized by the natural sciences, but it 
must also recognize aspects which these neglect—the 
aspects of value and their correlation with one another and 
with the whole. The option of trying to create such a 
philosophy, if we want to think and live truly, is not only 
a momentous but a forced option, for a rational life implies 
some sort of philosophy. The philosophy which boasts of 
its one-sidedness is the dupe of its own egotistic illusion, 
whether it be logical formalism or materialistic natural- 
ism. A thorough-going naturalism is bound to conserve 
all the perspectives. From the point of view of reality 
in its wholeness, the mental and spiritual perspectives are 
as natural as the material, which is only another way of 
saying that they exist as efficient aspects of the cosmos. 

Whatever our partial emphasis may be, it shows lack 
of sanity. There can be no true understanding or salva- 
tion except in the wholeness of things. We may try to 
reduce everything to the matter-type of pattern, based 
especially upon the touch reactions. Again, we may try to 
reduce everything to the mental type of pattern, as we 
become conscious of it in our social relations and as we 
strive to find meaning in the world. But he that knows 
only matter does not know matter. He that knows only 
mind does not know mind. Only by doing justice to the 
claims of matter and the claims of mind within the whole 
of reality, shall we arrive at the truth of either of them. 
We may in our conceit suppose that there is no order in 


382 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the universe except as our mind carves it out of the 
chaos of our sensations, forgetting that the pattern creative 
activity in us is but a trial and error response to the order 
of which we are a part, in which we interact, and by which 
our evolution is controlled. The esthetic and spiritual 
pattern responses are adjustments to the environment as 
truly as the food and sex impulses. The emphasis at 
different levels of development and from different per- 
spectives in a moving world will of course be different. 
Sometimes the emphasis will be on the unities and con- 
stancies, sometimes on the changing and individual events 
with their unique setting. At best, our selections are par- 
tial and relative. But all go to make up the whole and 
are functions within the selective activity of the whole. 
We start with a vague restlessness and with sensations 
changing and spread out. Then comes gradually a sense 
of discrimination and order, even as on a misty morning 
all is blended and confused, but with the rising sun details 
and perspectives appear. 

I would not deny its due claim to any perspective of 
reality. The material perspectives have their basis in 
sense-experience, and in the implications of sense-experli- 
ence. Their reality is confirmed by our practical adjust- 
ments. They are based upon real properties in space-time 
and a real order in space-time. While the properties vary 
in the diverse space-time perspectives and the diverse 
intervening media, they are independent of our personal 
histories. Both the properties and their order are truly 
objective. It is this fact that makes it possible for us 
to co-operate in our observations of nature and in our 
conduct within nature. If the properties and their order 
were the contribution of the individual percipient, such 
co-operation would be impossible. Nor can we say that 
they depend upon ‘consciousness in general,” a sort of 
standardized social mind, for we have discovered space- 
time perspectives in nature—in geological evolution for 
example—before mind or even life can be predicated of 
our earth. The material perspectives have a reality of 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 383 


their own, and we cannot give a complete account of 
reality if we ignore them nor can we act effectively. The 
material world is just as real as it appears to be—and just 
as variable. 

But while we have no right to deny reality to material 
properties and the perspectives in which they appear, we 
have no more right to deny reality to other properties and 
other types of perspectives which are not material. Since 
touch seems bounded by the skin, we have been prone to 
bound reality that way. But we must recognize the reality 
of social relations as truly as that of gravitational or elec- 
tromagnetic relations, and social relations cannot be truly 
stated in material terms. There are mental perspectives 
as well as material perspectives—perspectives of active 
interpretation, of complicated adjustments to the future 
on the basis of the past duration. The mental motion 
from past to future is different from material motion. 
There is in the former case significant implication from 
the past to the future. Sections are made of the stream 
of duration, properties and relations are abstracted from 
the concrete flow, the better to observe the tendency of 
this flow. Abstract perspectives of this flow, such as space 
and time and abstract sections of the space-time flow, have 
their empirical constants too—the interests and laws of 
mind which set the postulates for our ideal construction. 
They are part of the trial and error procedure of mind to 
know its world and to act upon it. And mind is part of the 
creative advance of nature. We must recognize such per- 
spectives as truth, beauty, and justice as well as material 
perspectives. Nor should we slight the material perspec- 
tives. A deeper insight will show that soul needs body 
as much as body needs soul. 

Since reality 1s energy, it can be known only in inter- 
action and interaction implies space-time. It is futile to 
ask about substance in the abstract or qualities in the 
abstract. Substance is but a name for the recurrence of 
qualities—for the enduring of an energy structure and its 
types of reactions. But energy systems never exist in 


384 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


vacuo. Motion in isolation is an intellectual abstraction. 
Energy is what it does and we can discover what it does 
only in integral situations. All the perspectives of nature 
are equally real, though for executive purposes we may 
emphasize certain aspects as more important. The dis- 
tinction of primary and secondary qualities has relevance 
only from the practical point of view of prediction. There 
is no rank of qualities in reality. In reality we must note 
the properties within integral situations. The implied 
perspectives, z.e., the properties in integral situations 
where there is no percipient agent are as real as those 
where there is a percipient agent. We must interpolate 
the former in order to understand the latter. The wood 
burns to ashes whether we watch or not, but in our cog- 
nitive schemes we weave the implied perspectives into a 
common world with our perceptual perspectives in 
order to give a consistent account of the world. We sup- 
plement our fragmentary experience with hypothesis and 
inference. 

Entities, whether physical or mental, are known as con- 
stants in perspectives and possible perspectives. They do 
not exist in isolation. They are never neutral in reality. 
Of course entities which are mere fictions of our construc- 
tive imagination are neutral so far as the perspectives of 
nature are concerned, but even then they exist as con- 
stants in the perspectives of imagination. All perspectives 
must have their relative constants. Else there can be no 
prediction, no reading of events. Hntities are what they 
appear to be in perspectives. They are but groups of 
aspects. Matter is what it appears to be in sense perspec- 
tives and in other perspectives. Mind is what it appears 
to be in mental perspectives of meaning and value. The 
latter presupposes mnemic causation, 7.e., the enduring 
of past functioning as memory into the present. They also 
presuppose social relations, of which language is an instru- 
ment, for their elaboration. Mental perspectives have 
been called secondary perspectives in contrast with sense 
perspectives and implied perspectives of nature, not 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 385 


because they are less real as perspectives than the pri- 
mary, but because they presuppose these and make crea- 
tive additions to these in the way of artificial constructions 
in order to interpret them. So far as these mean primary 
perspectives and aim to construe and predict them, they 
must be verified in terms of the primary perspectives. 
They may, however, be free constructions of the creative 
activity of mind. They then involve no control except 
that set by the constitution of the mind. Mental per- 
spectives have their own characteristics and _ history. 
They do not belong within the class of perspectives to 
which we give the generic name of matter. But the 
diverse classes of perspectives, while distinct in kind, are 
not closed to each other. They intersect under condi- 
tions which can be established by scientific evidence. We 
thus get rid of the cumbersome theories of parallelism 
and of divine intervention as regards the relations of 
different types of perspectives. Of these theories, the for- 
mer is a mere confession of ignorance; the latter attempts 
to explain by bringing in another assumption. All per- 
spectives must intersect mental perspectives if knowledge 
is to be possible. So far as the perspectives of nature are 
closed to our knowledge, we have no evidence of their 
existence. But their relation to knowledge is for us at any 
rate a relative matter. Large fields of nature which have 
been isolated from our knowledge are being opened to it 
and vast fields await discovery, and some relations of 
nature may lie permanently outside the possible perspec- 
tives of human nature. The relation of nature to knowl- 
edge is not a relation of absolute dependence.** 

Reality is what it appears to be in space-time perspec- 
tives. We must hold with Hegel that the real appears, and 
with him we must find the ground of appearances in 
reciprocal activity. In the past we have been prone to 
ignore time and to treat reality, including our own opinion, 
as eternal and absolute. Now we have found that we can- 


** For a masterly statement of the Hegelian hypothesis see Lord 
Haldane’s The Reign of Relativity. 


386 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


not define reality without taking time into account, even 
for purposes of astronomy and mechanics. We must not 
mistake the seeming immediacy of facts to introspection 
for immediacy in causal perspective. The causal relation 
is a space-time relation. We do not see stars immediately 
but we see stars of a certain distance and a certain date. 
Time figures as a factor in all real perspectives. We live 
from perspective to perspective, and all our reality is 
relative to perspectives. He who asks for things in the 
abstract and properties in the abstract asks for an empty 
fiction. Such entities would indeed be neutral, since they 
would be nothing at all. We can sometimes vary the per- 
spective. We can make it larger or smaller, nearer or 
farther, but we cannot get rid of it. All facts, whether 
properties, lengths, time-intervals, or values are facts of 
adjustment. They are what they are because of the guid- 
ing field with its space-time perspective and empirical 
determinants. Our personal perspectives though not iso- 
lated are in fact unique, non-integrable, but for practical 
purposes we can treat them as Euclidian, 7.e., we can apply 
common measures and co-operate for common ends, since 
they are adaptations to the common world of action. By 
thus applying common yard-sticks to one another’s per- 
spectives, we gain no doubt in efficiency for action, but we 
may miss the concrete significance. And as we generally 
strive to enforce our measures upon others, we fail of the 
enrichment from other peoples’ point of view. But above 
our finite varying perspectives with their kaleidoscopic 
effects, there is the form of the whole, the law of equilib- 
rium, the guiding field in which our perspectives exist. This 
is largely an article of faith, but every consideration, mate- 
rial and spiritual, points to it. 


Consciousness and Perspectives 
In speaking of primary perspectives and secondary per- 
spectives, I have said nothing about consciousness. The 
fact is, that so long as we are dealing with integral reac- 
tions, we do not find it necessary to say anything about 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 387 


consciousness, for consciousness must be included some- 
how within the concrete interactions if these constitute 
reality. If consciousness is included within the perspec- 
tives of reality, either as the whole of which the various 
perspectives are parts, or aS an aspect of perspectives, 
then it is misleading to say that the perspectives of nature 
are independent of consciousness. But we cannot say what 
is the relation of consciousness to the perspectives of 
nature until we have defined consciousness. It is a striking 
and discouraging fact that while philosophers have had a 
great deal to say about consciousness, they have not 
stopped to make clear just what difference consciousness 
makes to the perspectives of nature. Is it an entity or is 
it arelation? If it is an entity, does it figure in complexes 
with other entities? Or does it exist in isolation? Is it a 
type of energy? Or does it belong to another class of enti- 
ties? Is it “another general name for the acts of mind, 
which in their relation to other existences are said to be 
conscious of them as their objects”? ** Or is it something 
distinct from mind, so that we can say that the mind may 
be conscious or unconscious? Is it an indefinable quality 
like blue? Or is it a quantitative relation of which there 
can be more or less? But even if it is a quality like blue, 
we can at any rate distinguish blue in relation to other 
qualities and we can make distinctions within blue by 
arranging the hues of blue in schemes, and we can define 
the kind of perspective in which blue appears. Can we 
do so with consciousness? 

The trouble with definitions of consciousness is that they 
are vague and circular. Consciousness is sometimes defined 
as awareness, and awareness is said to be neutral. But 
awareness is only another name for consciousness. The 
term awareness implies a relation. It implies something 
that is aware and something of which this is aware. If 
awareness is a relation of mind to something else, aware- 
ness cannot be identical with mind. Can we be sure that 
minds are the only things which sustain the relation of 

#38. Alexander, Space, Time and Deity, Vol. I, p. 12. 


388 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


awareness to other things? Or can things which are not 
minds sustain the relation of awareness to one another? 
If we mean by awareness significant awareness—judge- 
ments, conceptions, inferences, appreciations, volitions— 
then we must limit awareness to mental or secondary per- 
spectives. But are we not arbitrary in thus limiting the 
term? We cannot say until we know what we mean by 
the term awareness. 

Consciousness seems at best a confused concept, yet 
somehow we do not seem able to eliminate it from the dis- 
cussion of reality. In her brilliant and suggestive book, 
The New Idealism, May Sinclair makes an advance in 
the definition of consciousness by distinguishing between 
primary consciousness and secondary consciousness: “Pri- 
mary consciousness is the whole block immediately pres- 
ent in consciousness, before reflection, or any sort of 
secondary awareness, has got to work on it.” ** We cannot, 
according to Miss Sinclair, distinguish consciousness from 
this primary immediacy of sensa or primary acts of will 
or involuntary association: “Until the secondary act of 
reflection has taken place it is impossible to shave off the 
thinnest slice of pure consciousness from the primary 
block, so entirely is it one with its object. Object and 
consciousness are given whole in one indivisible act or 
state.” °° The more intense consciousness is, the more 
convincing is the absorption of consciousness in the object. 
In the case of the primary facts of experience, then, con- 
sclousness seems to be an inseparable aspect of the facts: 
“The razor blade of analytic thought can only get in 
between it and the secondary act. It can, that is to say, 
only distinguish between consciousness and conscious- 
ness.” ** We can only distinguish secondary awareness 
from primary awareness. It is impossible to regard the 
awareness as independent of the sensa of which we are 
aware. In this I am inclined to go a considerable distance 


** The New Idealism, p. 275. 
ne Ras tor 275. 
*° Ibid., pp. 276, 277. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 389 


with Miss Sinclair. But before we can get anywhere, we 
must make clear what we mean by consciousness. 

When we try to discover, in the mass of verbiage con- 
cerning consciousness, some defining characteristic, there 
is only one aspect that stands out, and that is the aspect 
of selection. Consciousness in psychological analysis is 
bound up somehow with emphasis and corresponding inhi- 
bition; with clearness and distinctness; with attention and 
orientation in relation to certain events. It is an aspect of 
adjustment and therefore varies with the field of adjust- 
ment. To be sure, psychology has been concerned with 
secondary consciousness primarily, 7.e., with the judge- 
ments and attitudes of the mature man. Hence it pre- 
supposes a certain kind of duration in the way of habit 
and memory; and adjustment comes to mean a definite 
type of implication from the past to the future. But even 
the old psychology recognizes limiting cases of pure per- 
ception where the secondary structures which have to do 
with meaning are kept in abeyance and where the aware- 
ness at least approximates to Miss Sinclair’s primary type. 
In any case, since the individual who is to discriminate 
between the primary and secondary consciousness neces- 
sarily functions in so doing as a secondary consciousness, 
it is not so easy to get a razor blade between the secondary 
and primary consciousness as Miss Sinclair seems to think. 
It is only in some cases of transition as in waking up from 
a shock or swoon or deep sleep that we seem to be able to 
catch the transition from the primary to the secondary 
types of consciousness. And here we cannot have the 
primary consciousness quite pure, since the primary con- 
sciousness does not judge and the secondary consciousness 
cannot judge until it is superimposed upon the primary. 

The problem becomes simpler when we study behaviour 
objectively, though in studies of this kind the term con- 
sciousness has generally been avoided. In objective terms, 
as in the study of the behaviour of animals of various 
grades, including the protozoa, we can determine whether 
the selective reactions are strictly physical, such as trop- 


390 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


isms, whether they imply habit, whether they also imply 
reproductive association, and whether in the highest ani- 
mals they imply some rudimentary form of judgement and 
inference. But in judging human beings as well as in 
judging animals, we must understand consciousness in 
terms of adjustment; and we are notably more successful 
in judging others than in judging ourselves. The stimulus- 
response method, if taken in its broadest sense so as to 
include social interstimulation, is the only scientific method 
in psychology as in other sciences, though we may gather 
interesting collateral evidence in the former case from 
the introspective interpretation which the subject makes 
of the stimulus-response relation, even if this is often 
mistaken. 

It may be noted that Miss Sinclair’s primary conscious- 
ness coincides largely with the primary perspectives in the 
previous pages except that she does not recognize the 
existence of implied perspectives which are not perceptual 
perspectives. Her secondary consciousness corresponds in 
the main to the class of secondary or mental perspectives. 
This correspondence has more than passing interest. If 
we are able to give an account of reality in terms of per- 
spectives without using the term consciousness, it seems 
that consciousness, if it has any place in an account of 
reality at all, must be an aspect of perspectives. It may, 
I think, be conceived as a universal and inseparable aspect 
of perspectives, namely, the selective aspect which is 
implied in all perspectives. All perspectives imply, as we 
have seen, a space-time structure from which and a space- 
time structure to which a selective response is made, with 
due allowance for the medium in which the transaction 
takes place. Miss Sinclair recognizes that in some sense 
there are perspectives in the past and in the present which 
are not human perceptual perspectives. These must, how- 
ever, on her principle be regarded as conscious perspectives 
since consciousness is inseparable from reality. Selective- 
ness seems the only function or character which is insep- 
arable from perspectives of all kinds. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 391 


If we identify consciousness with the selective aspect of 
perspectives, then consciousness 1s indeed universal. We 
may say that the magnet is aware of the entering of the 
lodestone into its field and takes account of the direction 
and distance of the lodestone. Physical things ‘“‘take note” 
of one another’s presence. Chemical elements, entering 
into compounds, take account of one another’s quantita- 
tive and qualitative characters and the temperature, elec- 
trolysis, and other conditions of their synthesis. We have 
indeed the high authority of Lotze for using consciousness 
in this generic sense, though we must guard against the 
animistic implications of Lotze’s philosophy. In order to 
have interaction in nature of any sort, whether inorganic, 
organic, or mental, it is not sufficient that certain factors 
are compresent in time and space; they must be sensitive 
to one another’s presence, take account of one another’s 
presence, be different somehow for the compresence of the 
other factors. Else the other factors might just as well not 
be compresent. As Lotze says: 


If things are to take a different course according to 
different conditions, they must take note whether 
those conditions exist or no. That difference of con- 
ditions, consisting in the fact that at one time a is, 
at another is not, must make a difference for 6 itself, 
not merely for an observer reflecting on the two; b 
must be in a different state, must be otherwise 
affected, must experience something different in itself 
when a is and when a is not.*’ 


This holds wherever we have causal determination, for 
here we must account for how a becomes o and b becomes 
8 by virtue of this relation. And this cannot be accounted 
for unless the compresent factors take account of one 
another, and not only take account of one another in gen- 
eral but of one another’s qualitative and quantitative 
characters in space-time. 

Such discriminative, determinate reaction is character- 

27 Metaphysics, Vol. I, p. 45. 


392 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


istic of nature throughout; and this is what makes it pos- 
sible to predict nature. If we treat the selective com- 
presence of fields of energy in nature as awareness—the 
adjustment of the magnetic needle in a magnetic field, the 
adjustment of a body in a gravitational field, the selective 
responses of neurones in the spinal cord to sense impulses, 
the selective cerebral schema, the selective responses of 
meaning and volition—we shall have a tremendous meth- 
odological advantage. We shall no longer have the cleavage 
between consciousness, on the one hand, and the uncon- 
scious, on the other. Nor’shall we be confronted with the 
paradox of deriving consciousness from non-consciousness 
which confronts us otherwise in every genetic series, not 
only in geological history but in every individual history 
and in the transitions within individual history from sleep- 
ing to waking. We can then account for secondary con- 
sciousness as what it is, viz., significant awareness which 
is made possible by superimposing, upon the primary phys- 
iological perspectives, a new type of structure with a new 
type of duration and new methods of creative synthesis 
and differential response. This type of structure, in turn, 
implies social organization with its symbolic signs, its tra- 
dition, its tensions and necessities for adjustment. The 
degrees of freedom vary with the complexity and so does 
the character of the duration. For it is only in connection 
with the most complex structures that we can perceive 
cumulative duration. In inorganic matter the duration is 
practically static for us creatures of a day, while in the 
more complex organic and mental structures we have 
cumulative functional adjustment, with corresponding 
complexity of behaviour. 

Consciousness, aS we conceive it, takes its place with 
space, time, energy, and structure as one of the universal 
categories.” These are abstractions which we make from 
the concrete history of nature in order to describe it. In 
order to describe its flow, we require the metric conceptions 


** See A Realistic Universe, Macmillan, 1916, for an account of these 
categories, 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 393 


of space, we require the concept of duration or passing 
which we quantify into clock-units and combine with 
space units, we require energy constants, and we require 
structural levels. But where does consciousness come in? 
Consciousness is the aspect of sensitiveness, of taking note, 
and is implied in all action. This taking note is prepara- 
tory to action. For in every action there is the sensitive- 
ness to outside stimulus, there is the unique structure 
which determines what sort of action shall take place, and 
there is the response itself. The stimulus-response con- 
ception of action emphasizes the end-terms of the action. 
But the same stimulus may give rise to vastly different 
responses and different stimuli may give rise to the same 
responses, according to the structure of the interacting 
factors. The complete relation, therefore, implies stimulus- 
structure-response. It is true that in inorganic nature 
awareness and response are in fact indistinguishable. They 
are only logically separable. But even in the inorganic 
realm, while the reaction begins with the awareness, the 
full action requires time. There is the inertia of the struc- 
ture of the reagent to be overcome. In simple organisms 
there is an observable slowing up of the action between 
stimulus and response, owing to the complexity of organic 
compounds. It is, however, in complex organisms that 
the retardation between the awareness of the stimulus and 
the overt response becomes striking. With the develop- 
ment of a nervous system with its complicated structure 
and its new types of duration in the way of reflexes, habits, 
and memory, there arise conflicts of responses and a rein- 
tegration is necessary before the response can take place. 
The conflict may be of various levels. It may be a conflict 
of hereditary impulses, such as the hesitation we notice in 
a child between the tendency to stroke a dog and the ten- 
dency to move away, excited by the dog’s growl. It may 
be a conflict between custom and hereditary tendency, as 
in the child’s impulse to satisfy its hunger and the delay 
required by table manners. It may be a conflict between 
memory tendencies with their emotional colouring, as in 


394 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the blocking of a name we are trying to recall. It is only 
on the mental level of organized meaning and creative 
experimentation that the delay takes the form of signifi- 
cant analysis and reconstruction. But throughout the 
various levels of action, from inorganic to reflective action, 
awareness is an essential aspect of action. The complete 
action, in any case, includes both awareness and response, 
though it is only where there is noticeable delay between 
the first awareness and the overt response that we usually 
discriminate between the awareness and the response. 
Perhaps I ought to saya word further about the relation 
between consciousness and energy. Does not the concept 
of energy include consciousness as we have defined the 
latter? That depends, of course, on how much we make 
the word energy mean. If we mean by energy all activity, 
kinetic and potential, it would include not only conscious- 
ness but all reality. For activity in the concrete is reality. 
But for the understanding of reality it is necessary to 
analyze the concrete action and to abstract certain aspects 
such as the spatial aspect, the temporal aspect, and the 
energy aspect. When we use energy in the strict scientific 
sense, it is no longer synonymous with action as in popu- 
lar parlance, for then it would include time and space, ete. 
For science energy is only an aspect of action. It empha- 
sizes not change but constancy. It figures as an empirical 
constant in our equations. It finds its general statement 
in the law of conservation of energy. According to Ein- 
stein’s conception of energy it includes inertia, which also 
figures as an empirical constant. Energy and inertia are 
only two ways of looking at the same aspect of reality— 
the same aspect with different signs. We speak of energy 
as inertia when we are interested in the superimposing of 
a new motion or a new direction of motion. As a matter 
of fact, everything is in motion and is part of fields of 
motion. Everything has its energy character. With the 
new conception of energy, we can reduce matter to energy, 
for by matter we mean certain constants in the empirical 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 395 


exchanges of nature. It is clear, then, that while action in 
the complete sense includes consciousness as well as space, 
time, ete., we cannot say that energy includes conscious- 
ness. Consciousness is an aspect of an activity system. It 
belongs to reality, wherever there is exchange, reciprocity. 
And as every part of reality exists in some bond with other 
parts, there is always consciousness. But not every 
part of reality is sensitive to every other part. The oppo- 
site of consciousness is inertia. Some atoms are spoken of 
as inert because they have not, so far, been stimulated to 
chemical exchanges with other atoms. But no part is 
wholly irresponsive. Matter at least responds to gravita- 
tional fields if 1t does not respond chemically. In a sense 
we can say with the ancient poet-philosopher, Xenophanes, 
that reality sees all over and hears all over. It is sensitive 
everywhere to some relations, even though it does not 
except in parts have differentiated organs for specific 
responses. 

Consciousness, like the categories of space, time, energy, 
and structure is a class concept. Just as there is no exten- 
sion in general or duration in general or energy in general 
or structure in general, so there is no consciousness in gen- 
eral. As we give up the Newtonian conceptions of a uni- 
form extension and a uniform duration, so we must give 
up the Newtonian conception of a uniform sensorium of 
nature, co-extensive with infinite space. Consciousness, 
like extension and duration, must be described in terms of 
a Gaussian geometry. The real nature of awareness varies 
with the structure and motion of the fields where it 
appears. Consciousness, like length and duration, is a 
character determined by adjustment. Its curvature varies 
with the character and motion of the interacting fields. It 
is retarded or accelerated and its quality is altered in the 
creative passing of nature. It is fundamentally non-inte- 
grable. Consciousness is then relative, varying with the 
interacting factors and fields and their relative motion. It 
is a different consciousness with every variation of the 


396 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


perspective of which it is an aspect. How various in qual- 
ity and value! How it shifts and trembles like evening 
shadows! 

If we start with consciousness in general as an extensive 
abstraction, then we may, of course, think of the particular 

‘unique awarenesses or instances of selective adjustment, 
with their unique taking note, as staining the general 
consciousness. We may even from the point of view of 
such an abstract realism regard the various perspectives 
as facts of consciousness. We may speak with Miss Sin- 
clair of a “tree of consciousness,” regarding consciousness 
as a universal container from which the concrete world is 
carved out. But this is inverting the true order of nature. 
There is no more a consciousness in general than there is a 
colour in general. And the similarities of consciousness 
must be determined in the same way as we determine the 
groupings of colours. There are, as a matter of fact, not 
a colour, blue, and consciousness, but a selective response 
which we call blue, and so with every other quality of 
reality. The awareness is an aspect of the selective response 
and inseparable from it. And as the selective response is 
non-integrable, so is the awareness. We are too prone to 
ignore the difference in quality in individual relations and 
to reduce them to quantitative collections. ‘To a certain 
extent we must do this, and when we deal with the simpler 
orders of reality it is, aside from questions of beauty, a 
question of convenience. But in the realm of human rela- 
tions this ignoring of quality and reducing individual 
facts to quantity becomes the very essence of immorality. 
And distinctions in beauty have their claim too as well as 
distinctions of morality. 

I cannot conceive how the sense qualities could be trans- 
mitted from some great reservoir of consciousness and 
merely canalized by our sense organs and nervous system. 
In social communication it is not other peoples’ sensa that 
are transmitted from one mind to another. But the sensa 
are correlated with common situations. This correlation 
may be instinctive or it may involve inference. The sense- 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 397 


qualities are in any case functions within perspectives. 
They are canalized, not in the sense that they pre-exist, 
but in the sense that they are characteristics of determinate 
perspectives of nature, implying specific space-time stimuli, 
sense organs, and nervous system. If we regard the sense 
organs as mere vehicles for canalizing pre-existent sense 
qualities, what is to canalize the sense-organs? We cannot 
escape reference to matter in some way. Have we any 
reason, moreover, to suppose that for a superconsciousness 
qualities are not functions of the various perspectives of 
nature in which we know them—that colour does not 
involve the reaction of a photo-chemical film in or outside 
the eye, that the curvature of ight in the neighbourhood 
of matter is not what it 1s for us but is a curvature of 
thought? From. what we know within our own experience 
of nature, there is no reason to believe that the primary 
perspectives, whether sense perspectives or implied per- 
spectives, are altered as regards their character and order in 
cognitive perspectives. Blue does not alter its colour by 
our thinking about it or analyzing it in thought. The idiot 
and Newton probably have the same sense perspectives, 
though they are almost an infinite distance apart in the 
range and comprehensiveness of their secondary perspec- 
tives. In the last analysis the primary perspectives owe 
their character to adjustment to the cosmic field of control 
in which they eternally move. This field of cosmic control 
is not something externally superadded to reality, though 
it may be superadded to our consciousness of reality. 
Within this ultimate field of control all perspectives have 
their definite function determined—in part by their own 
nature, in part by the cosmic control within which they 
move. 

The concept of mind now becomes an intelligible con- 
cept. Mind must be conceived as a certain type of struc- 
ture, known by its interaction with other structures, men- 
tal or physical. We are justified in speaking of perspectives 
as mental, whenever we find significant interfunctioning, 
actual or potential. The mental perspectives are no more 


398 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


constituted by consciousness than the gravitational or 
electromagnetic. But, in any case, consciousness is an 
inseparable and essential aspect of the perspective rela- 
tion. That consciousness is different in the secondary per- 
spectives from what it is in the primary perspectives of 
nature is due to the structural character and unique dura- 
tion of mental structures. 

If we define mental perspectives as perspectives which 
involve the psychological history of the individual, in con- 
trast with primary perspectives which vary independently 
of this history, it is clear that mental perspectives are 
vastly more variable and more difficult to predict than the 
primary, for they vary not only with the primary but with 
the personal history of the interpreter. They do not con- 
stitute a simple type, but rather a class concept, including 
various types and grades of significance. They include 
both the intellectual and the esthetic types of valuation, 
and both types have various degrees of clearness. The 
introspective attitude towards the process of valuation 
still further complicates the process, but is, after all, only 
one type of secondary perspective and not the only type as 
some have erroneously supposed. We do not take the 
introspective attitude in analyzing other individuals’ sig- 
nificant responses nor in analyzing the products of mind, 
those of our own mind or other minds. We may call intro- 
spective attitudes mental perspectives of the second order. 
The critical evaluation, again, of these introspective judge- 
ments we may call mental perspectives of the third order 
and so forth. If we speak of the process of judging as 
being awake, as Bosanquet does, there are evidently differ- 
ent degrees of being awake. These degrees have reference 
to the organization of our judgements. The ideal of valua- 
tion is that of wholeness, in which our various judgements 
shall be correlated into a complete interpretation of reality. 
The ideal of wholeness is relative, however, to our human 
point of view which is itself part of the creative passing of 
nature and relative to this passing. We must not mistake 
our dogmatism for the absolute. There is nothing absolute 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 399 


but the law of the whole, and this we can only realize in 
human perspective. 

Since we cannot reduce mental fields to gravitational 
fields or electromagnetic fields, any more than we can 
reduce gravitational fields and electromagnetic fields to 
each other, therefore we are justified in speaking of a cos- 
mic mental field as we speak of a cosmic gravitational field. 
As we conceive matter as moving within a gravitational 
field and within an electromagnetic field, so we may con- 
ceive it as moving within a mental field. It seems that 
matter plays the important part of the mediator, both in 
the availability of electromagnetic energy and in the 
availability of mental energy. But the differentiation of 
media and types of energy is after all a classifica- 
tion of functions and our human experience is too trun- 
cated to make dogmatic assertions of the upper levels of 
energy. 

Do not suppose that mind is made less real because we 
must approach it from the side of function. We have no 
knowledge of anything except through function. Matter 
and electromagnetism are merely class names for func- 
tions. Neither must we be deceived by language into 
supposing that mind is one generic affair. We have now 
learned that events in gravitational fields are uniquely 
determined and non-integrable. The same is true in the 
electromagnetic field. In each case, to be sure, we must 
assume a cosmic guiding field, a world curvature. But this 
in no wise abrogates the reality of the individual fields and 
the individual events within these fields. On the contrary, 
we can see in the case of matter that the total curvature is 
dependent upon the functioning of the individual fields 
and their relative distribution. The cosmic control must 
operate upon individual motions with their inertia, and 
these do not lose their individuality when curved within 
the larger control. This holds equally for the signifi- 
cant mental fields with their unique duration. Mind is 
exchange, interaction, not an abstract absolute, though 
there must exist a higher level of mind than our mind to 


400 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


account for the evolution of our minds and our sense of 
limitation. Certainly it is not our mind which makes the 
objective order of nature which we interpret in knowledge 
and appreciate in beauty. 

Nor must we suppose that mental perspectives are less 
real because they presuppose a highly complex organiza- 
tion of matter and electromagnetic energy. The fact that 
we presuppose a certain organization and motion of matter 
and electricity to make mental interactions apparent is no 
more an argument against the reality of mind than the 
fact that we are dependent upon the organization of mat- 
ter to make light apparent is an argument against the 
reality of light. It is because light, and radiant heat, etc., 
reveal themselves as having unique properties in their 
action upon matter that we believe in the reality of these 
types of energy. And so, for the same reason, we must 
believe in mental energy as a unique type, since we cannot 
reduce it to matter and electricity. In the meantime we 
must remember that the cosmos is eternally the interrela- 
tion of these and other types, little as we know about this 
interrelation. One thing is certain—they are plural and 
they effect energy exchanges with one another, without 
one type being changed into another. Their quality is 
constant. 

If we make experience, 2.e., the relation of experiencing, 
so general as to cover all taking account of one fact by 
another, then we may well say that there is no fact which 
is not experienced since there is no fact or aspect of the 
real world which is not part of a field and in energy rela- 
tions to other facts in space-time. In this broad sense to 
be is to be perceived. But this is broader than the sense we 
usually have in mind. Berkeley humanizes reality. To 
him things must exist for minds such as the human mind. 
By experience he means human experiencing. He human- 
izes God as well as nature, as the epistemological idealists 
have always done. But if we attribute the compresence of 
experiencing to nature in all its stages, we must strip it of 
anthropomorphic implications. The quality of the experi- 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 401 


ence relation depends upon the organization of the factors 
which enter into the relation. We must not ascribe mental 
experiencing to those parts of nature which lack the struc- 
tural qualifications for such experiencing. But all are part 
somehow of the control of the whole. 


Reality as History 

History is the fundamental type of reality. All other 
types are abstractions in various degrees from it. Physical 
science in the past has carried on its measurements on the 
basis of nature-at-an-instant, but now it turns out that 
even for the abstract purposes of physics and astronomy 
we cannot ignore time in our measurements. Our measure- 
ments and laws of nature are empirical. They hold only 
for certain conditions of motion, pressure, temperature, 
electromagnetic field, etc. We know now that these condi- 
tions are relative to the passage of nature. The laws of 
science are valid only for certain chunks of the duration of 
nature, and these chunks must be ascertained empirically 
and differ for various types of duration. The theory of 
relativity shows the necessity of taking account of time as 
well as space. Our statements of reality must be four- 
dimensional. 

It must be clear now that time is the crux of the prob- 
lem of relativity. If it were not for time, there would be 
no problem of relativity, for there would be no variation 
of perspectives. In a timeless world there would be no 
motion, no prediction, no adjustment. We should have 
still life, minus the life. But in fact our perspectives vary 
with time. Time is an ingredient in reality. It affects 
our qualities and our measures. We live from chunk to 
chunk. The varying perspectives are non-integrable, as 
Weyl has shown. Our transformations from one space-time 
perspective to another are therefore pragmatic in the real 
passing of nature. The real path is the result of adjust- 
ment in a four-dimensional world. We discover empirical 
constants which make it possible for us to read some order 
from next to next, and so we have a certain degree of pre- 


402 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


diction for practical purposes. But we have no reason to 
suppose that these empirical constants are absolute. 

Time is the passage of nature. If reality were nature at 
an instant, a statement concerning nature would be eter- 
nal. Of course an instant is itself a limiting abstraction 
from our temporal world. The conception of nature at an 
instant could have meaning only in a temporal world. It 
is because reality is temporal that we can establish such 
limits as instants; but because reality 1s temporal the 
description of nature at an instant is insufficient. We 
require, even for the abstract purposes of the physicist, an 
indefinite number of descriptions. When we speak of the 
passage of nature we refer to the intuition of time. The 
significance of time may be stated in intellectual terms as 
follows: Time is that character of reality which makes nec- 
essary an indefinite number of descriptions in order to 
define reality.”” It matters not for our purpose whether 
the passage of nature is primarily physical or primarily 
psychological, or both physical and psychological; in any 
case it makes necessary a new statement of reality. We 
have here nothing to do with the device for quantifying 
the passage of nature into clock intervals and giving time 
a numerical value, though this device has its convenience 
for purposes of description. We are dealing here with 
what Einstein calls ‘the physical significance of time” or 
what we should call its metaphysical significance, since it 
holds for all domains of reality. This has reference to the 
instability of the structure of reality or what Professor 
Whitehead calls the creative passage of nature. 

In real history, as contrasted with the abstraction with 
which physical science deals, the past endures. It is not 
true, as in the abstract view of chemistry, that any number 
of step-compounds make no difference to the new synthe- 
sis. Where we have real duration, structure carries a twist 
from the past and this affects future behaviour. We have 
some indication of the enduring of the past in the different 


*°See Time and Reality, 1904, Chapter I, and A Realistic en 
1916 PartaLy, 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 403 


reaction of steel, when it is magnetized, but it is in the 
organic and psychological passage of nature that the per- 
sistence of the past as a condition of new synthesis 1s most 
potent to our limited observation. We see it in the realm 
of biological heredity in the cumulative duration of vari- 
ations and in the inertia which this duration offers to inter- 
breeding. We cannot cross species; or if we can cross 
kindred species, as in the case of the horse and the ass, the 
result is sterile. We see it in the social realm in the cumu- 
lative structure of civilization and the inertia which tradi- 
tion offers to new social syntheses or assimilations. But if 
this is inertia from the point of view of a new synthesis, it 
is also a condition of advance, for without this cumulative 
duration there could be no progress. This duration in 
physical nature generally has such a large span that it is 
apt to escape the observation of us creatures of a day. 
The phrase, the creative passage of nature, needs defin1- 
tion. While all nature is passing, all the passage of nature 
is not creative, at any rate if we view it piecemeal as we 
must in human experience. There is a great deal of pas- 
sage to and fro in the Brownian movement—the passage 
of molecules in dispersion. But it cannot be said to be 
creative passage. A great deal of the motion in our own 
lives is restless hurrying to and fro without creative result. 
The mere passing over space does not mean creative dura- 
tion in time. The theory of relativity deals with nature in 
a purely quantitative manner. It spatializes time, as Berg- 
son would say. We have a four-dimensional ordering of 
events in which time is interchangeable with the dimen- 
sions of space. Motion is lost in numerical relations, as it 
must be if we deal with motion as an intellectual abstrac- 
tion. But there is no passing of nature in the abstract. 
It is always a concrete passing, a real duration, determined 
by empirical conditions and canalized by the curvature 
of the whole. The abstract limit of the passing of nature 
is symbolized by Newton’s first law—the law of persistence. 
Here we have pure passing, with no intrinsic alteration. 
But, as Einstein has shown, and Newton and Hegel long 


404 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


before Einstein, such pure passing is indistinguishable 
from rest or no passing. In the real passing of nature 
there is no absolute relation between translation over space 
and creative duration. The two are not functions of each 
other. Our translation in space with the earth, which is 
the basis of our time measurements, does not necessarily 
make any difference to our psychological duration—our 
habits, meanings, and purposes. The concrete throbs of 
our psychological existence are not functions of the divi- 
sions of clock time. We must keep in mind, too, that real 
space is not our quantitative units of measurement which 
we abstract from the extensive qualities of things, but the 
medium which conditions the motions of our extensive 
things; and real time is not the conventional intervals of 
clocks, but the real passing of nature, of which our clocks 
serve but as artificial measures, though useful for social 
co-operation. Real space is not divided by our yardsticks. 
The real passing of nature is not divided by our clocks. 
It has its own rhythm, its own blocks of duration, its own 
retrospect and prospect which we must learn to respect. 
The actual passing of nature involves interaction and crea- 
tive synthesis. It runs its cycle in obedience to the law 
of the whole. It has various qualities of duration—inor- 
ganic, organic, psychological—which we must discover 
empirically and cannot deduce from quantitative space- 
time. 

The passage of nature is not a simple affair. It is not a 
one-way process. The downward path in nature and the 
upward path exist together. The passage of nature means 
dissolution as well as creative synthesis, as Professor A. 
Lalande has so well shown in his work, La Dissolution. 
In reality dissolution and creative synthesis must go on 
together. They are complementary aspects in fact, though 
separated in our attention. For in nature creative synthe- 
sis is made possible by the dissolution of the existing 
structures. Sometimes we may regard the existing struc- 
tures as step-compounds, in the language of chemistry, 
but a new creative synthesis involves in any case the dis- 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 405 


solution of the bond of the past. The rearrangement must 
be thorough. The new synthesis is a new pattern-distribu- 
tion of the components. Nature always passes from syn- 
thesis to synthesis through dissolution. One must die to 
be born again, is a fundamental law of nature. Therefore 
we must take account of the dissolution of nature as well 
as the synthesis of nature. Sometimes the dissolution is 
the dominant phase and the synthesis is hidden for us in 
the future. So far as our circumscribed human interests 
are concerned the dissolution may seem final. But in the 
large, and from the cosmic perspective, the dissolution is a 
phase of the creative advance. 

The reality of history implies plurality of structure as 
well as motion. For if reality consisted of only one block, 
one system, whether it be material or psychological, even 
though we conceive it as in motion, we cannot conceive it 
as knowing that it is in motion. Such an isolated system 
would presumably move uniformly according to Newton’s 
first law. And for that reason it would have no way of 
knowing whether it were moving or stationary. It would 
remain self-identical. It would cumulate nothing. There 
could be no development, no creative advance. Even if 
such a block were conceived as complex, no part could 
contrast itself with the whole, for the part would move 
with the impulse of the whole, in a uniform relation to the 
whole, and therefore could not possibly distinguish itself 
from the whole. For if it should move independently of 
the whole, this would mean that it has an impetus of its 
own which is not communicated by the whole. A single 
field of motion could, of course, notice its motion if it were 
accelerated. But it could not accelerate itself. An impetus 
must be encountered from another field of motion. In 
physics we might say that the motion enters a gravita- 
tional field. 

One thing is certain, there can be no distinction of parts, 
no cumulation of structure, no creative passing of nature 
unless we have a pluralistic world. Nature, as we know it, 
whether in the abstract realm of physics, or within the 


406 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


more concrete realms of biology and sociology, is an inter- 
action of multiple fields of motion. It is because of this 
plurality that we have a conflict of motions, acceleration 
or retardation of motions, relativity of perspectives, hence 
the necessity of adjustment, hence thought. Thought 
implies relativity and conflict. A uniform world would be 
a dead, unconscious world. This necessity for plurality and 
conflict was clearly seen by the great ancient seer, Heracli- 
tus: °° “Homer was wrong in saying: ‘Would that 
strife might perish from among gods and men!’ He did 
not see that he was praying for the destruction of the uni- 
verse; for, if his prayer were heard, all things would pass 
away.’ For progress there must be selective competition, 
as Heraclitus also saw: “War is the father of all and the 
king of all: and some he has made gods and some men, 
some bond and some free.” Such harmony as we know is a 
harmony of tension; and this must be true in the large as 
well as in the small. As Heraclitus says: “The harmonious 
structure of the world depends upon opposite tension like 
that of the bow and the lyre.” This implies a cosmic law 
of adjustment. 

If history is the fundamental type of reality, human his- 
tory is the only history which we know intimately. All 
else is for us projection and interpretation from human 
perspectives. Human history is the history of values in 
the concrete, though because of the limitations of our 
interest, we divide it up into abstract histories or histories 
of certain types of value, and the tendency is for the par- 
ticular historian to regard the values with which he deals 
as paramount. The student of economics subordinates 
everything to his special interest; so does the student of 
science, of art, of morality, or of religion. This is a nat- 
ural limitation of human nature, but we shall ignore it 
here. We here refer to history in the concrete, which is an 
interplay of an indefinite number of motives. It is here 
that relativity reigns par excellence. The difficulty is that 
while we know a small block of human history intimately 

°° Fragments 438, 44, 45, in Burnet’s Translation. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 407 


we lack the large perspective that we have in geology, for 
example. It is difficult to find a frame of reference outside 
the molluse in which we live (to use Einstein’s ugly but 
expressive word). We live too much in local space and 
local time. When we take account of another frame of ref- 
erence we treat our own frame of reference as absolute and 
read the values of the other frame of reference in terms 
of our own. The mathematician may say that one frame 
of reference is as valid as another, and so it is—for the 
mathematician. But as real human beings our own frame 
of reference has the reality of conviction. We always feel 
that the universe of values within which we live is abso- 
lute. We are satisfied with things as we are. Those who 
live on the Common Street of custom and prejudice do not 
know that they live on Common Street in the sense that a 
person who has a perspective from another centre with an 
independent history sees it. And is it so certain that his 
perspective and his standards are ultimate? 

We are no better judges as regards the successive mol- 
luses in our own history than we are of other histories. We 
live from block to block in our personal history as though 
the block in which we live were absolute until, through the 
pressure of events in the advance of nature, we find our- 
selves in the next block. In each case we use the co-ordi- 
nates of the system within which we live as the basis of 
measurement. We assign values on the basis of our pres- 
ent standards to other perspectives, successive and con- 
temporaneous. But our measures are after all relative, as 
we can see in retrospect. From block to block the values 
vary because the co-ordinates, the standards, are new. The 
plus values may become minus values and the minus 
values plus values, but all have to be revalued in the 
passage of nature. There is nothing absolute in our expe- 
rience except our conviction, our will that our present 
standards of value shall be acted on as final. Else action 
would be paralyzed in the pale cast of thought. Hence a 
certain blindness is an inevitable part of human life. But 
if we live our truest insight and if we live deeply, some- 


408 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


thing of the eternal order, we may hope, is reflected in our 
life. For through it all there runs the silver thread of the 
law of the whole, and to some it seems to be given to see 
more of it than others, but all see it in the perspective of 
their own motion. 

There is no better illustration of the complexity of his- 
tory than human history. We speak of history in the 
singular, but it is well to remember that history is a class 
concept. In fact, there are histories—parallel histories, 
intersecting histories, successive histories. Every individ- 
ual has his own history and his own series of perspectives 
of value, conditioned by heredity on the one hand and the 
interactions with the environment on the other. Individual 
history, again, is a succession of chunks of duration. 
Within each chunk the measures of value are fairly con- 
stant. But even individual history in any one chunk is far 
from simple. It consists of a sheaf of tendencies or activi- 
ties. Some of these motions, potential or actual, conflict. 
Others converge and may be understood in terms of a 
guiding field or direction. Some are parallel as in cases 
where we do not let the left hand know what the right hand 
doeth. The degree of integration varies in different indi- 
vidual histories and in different epochs of the same history. 
In early life the motions are parallel; each impulse runs 
its own course except as accidentally it may conflict with 
some motion from without. As life advances there is an 
increasing tendency to integration within a hierarchial 
control. But the physiological reflexes preserve a great 
deal of independence; and even on the mental plane there 
may be co-consciousness between different co-existent self- 
systems or alternation between different self-systems. An 
extreme instance of this 1s multiple personalities, but per- 
haps no human life is fully integrated. 

It is a marvel how individual histories with their various 
perspectives ever became integrated into group control. It 
must have meant considerable reflection and discipline by 
events before a crust of custom could be formed which 
would make possible group control. The pressure for 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 409 


co-operation in order to sustain life and the necessity for 
curbing the reproductive instinct are dominant factors in 
primitive society. Some geniuses, brighter and braver than 
the rest, saw the economy of submitting disputes to a 
third party instead of deciding them by force. The desire 
to live life without interference led gradually to the recog- 
nition of acommon order. Once the integration had begun, 
it became consolidated more and more, partly by conflict 
with the forces of nature, but more especially with individ- 
uals and groups who threatened the community interest. 
Once the consolidation had taken place, the conflict 
became a conflict between groups rather than individuals. 
But the original motive which led to the formation of 
groups has led to further consolidation of groups with the 
same ruthlessness as against individuals and groups which 
have resisted assimilation. We thus have the national his- 
tories of modern times, with their enormous complexity of 
motives or lines of motion within a nation and the continu- 
ous rivalry and conflict amongst nations. What concerns 
us here is the integration of individual histories and their 
perspectives into group histories with a common perspec- 
tive, a common line of motion. This does not mean that 
the integration even within the groun is complete. Only 
those motions which are regarded as important for the life 
of the group are curved within a common control. The 
same holds in the further integration of groups. As 
between groups which are not integrated under a common 
control, self-interest or fear may still restrain them from 
conflict for the time being. 

Group histories like individual histories move from mol- 
luse to mollusc. The crust of custom within the group 
comes to seem absolute and resists change. Institutions 
may be begotten by geniuses in pain and travail; but, once 
they mature into custom, they are carried on by high grade 
morons for morons of various grades. Within the crust 
thinking ceases, until in the stress of events the crust 
breaks. The institution is hostile to genius, for genius 
means individual motion and the group can tolerate 


410 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


nothing which it cannot curb. There is no Jealousy so 
bitter as the jealousy of mediocrity. Mediocrity elevates 
the ass to be the arbiter of values, for the ass knows his 
master’s crib and his judgement is sure to be satisfactory— 
to his kind. While the crust maintains itself there is a 
certain unanimity in the basis of valuation. We have com- 
mon measures, a common perspective. But groups are 
proverbially blind to the scales of value of other groups as 
well as of individuals that have a different frame of ref- 
erence. Every group history has its own tradition and its 
own measures, it arranges the values of the past and pres- 
ent in its own perspective. This relativity of valuation 
may be illustrated in the attitude to prominent person- 
alities of history. A personality who is a hero from the 
point of view of one group perspective may be a criminal 
from another group perspective. Witness the case of 
Napoleon in Europe. And what holds as between different 
group perspectives holds also between different molluscs 
in the same history. Here too the values change and 
sometimes in a revolutionary way. Witness the change of 
perspectives in France from the Bourbons to the great 
Revolution and from the Revolution to the return of the 
Bourbons. It is plain that the co-ordinates, the measures 
of value, are different in different perspectives. Therefore 
we cannot integrate values of different perspectives. 

What has been said of personalities holds equally of 
ideals. In fact the two cannot be separated, since person- 
alities are valued as exponents of ideals. Perspectives of 
aristocracy and democracy, saintliness and worldliness, 
beauty and utility are incommensurable. One age or group 
believes in aristocracy and all its values are determined by 
this ideal. The whole field of values is assigned its num- 
bers on that basis. Another age believes in democracy and 
all the values change. The whole structure of values 
becomes different. We have a new geometry of value. The 
geometry of values is indeed a Gaussian geometry. We 
cannot correlate the perspectives of aristocracy and democ- 
racy nor can we correlate perspectives of spiritual and of 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIMt PERSPECTIVES 411 


material values. Every mollusc is characterized by con- 
viction. It is to itself an absolute frame of reference. 
When two conflicting perspectives co-exist with their will 
to live and to prevail, there is war until the death or 
sullen surrender of one of them. At any rate it must now 
be clear that what we have empirically is not history, but 
histories with their various perspectives, claims, and ambi- 
tions. The valuations of history are transient. There is no 
absolute frame of reference available. And our pretences 
at absoluteness are soon made ridiculous by the creative 
passing of nature. This does not mean that all judgements 
of history are equally valid. Within the perspective in 
which we live we must aim at the largest possible correla- 
tion of values. This involves creative imagination and 
sympathy as well as painstaking labour. The more 
thorough-going our correlation is, the greater its instru- 
mental value within the molluse and the better the way is 
prepared for a new valuation. 

So far, we have had no continuous development in 
human histories; and therefore we have no way of telling 
of the possibilities of human advance. Theoretically, 
groups may live on indefinitely. They are not limited by 
the span of individuals. They grow old and ossified, to be 
sure, in their customs; but as there are always new genera- 
tions of men, a group may become young again. In fact, 
the history of groups has been foreshortened by internal 
and external conflicts. Owing to the lack of communica- 
tion, some groups and races have lived parallel histories. 
Others have intersected with critical result to their histori- 
cal development. Few peoples, as Bagehot truly remarks, 
have survived the breaking of the crust of custom. Since 
man attained his present physiological development, vari- 
ous races and peoples have supplanted one another. Of the 
early history of man we have but fragments. The Cro- 
magnon race attained a very considerable development in 
art and tools, but for some unknown reason disappeared 
from the scene and was supplanted by physically inferior 
races. In the use of tools there has been a fairly steady 


412 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


advance, but this is after all only one measure of civiliza- 
tion. In art the cave-dwelling Cromagnon, spite of his 
disadvantages, attained an excellence in certain lines that 
we must still admire. As for the most prominent historic 
peoples, the characteristics in which, they have excelled 
have been for the most part different and there can be no 
common measure. Their span of life, moreover, has been 
comparatively brief and so we cannot tell what they 
might have done. 

If we take into account only the more recent historic 
peoples, we are struck by the incommensurability of their 
qualities, on the one hand, and the lack of continuity mn 
the general human stream, on the other. The Greeks had 
a brilliant development in art, science, and politics for a 
short span and then went into decadence. Their history 
was intersected by that of the Romans, a more primitive 
people, who stamped their own practical genius upon the 
civilizations which they found, as they reinterpreted them 
from their own frame of reference. Rome in turn went 
into decadence and was supplanted by the barbarous races 
to the north, who while they went to school to Rome trans- 
formed Roman civilization into their own traits and tradi- 
tion. Held together in an external way by the authority of 
the medieval church, the new peoples mastered the rudi- 
ments of the old civilization, until the centrifugal motion 
of their own histories broke the old bond and we have the 
complex life of modern Europe with its many streams and 
conflicting perspectives. It is an illusion to suppose that 
these histories, as they supplant each other in turn, inherit 
the culture of the groups they supplant. Roman history 
takes over from Greek history only what it can assimilate, 
and so with the histories that fall heir to Rome. Roman 
history in its comparatively long span falls into two 
sharply distinct epochs. The gulf is greater between pagan 
Rome and Christian Rome than between pagan Rome and 
Athens. 

When Rome fell, the Arabs took over in their own way 
the ancient treasure only to be overwhelmed by the Turks, 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 418 


who, in their blindness, destroyed what they could not 
assimilate. But if the Turks burned the library of Alex- 
andria, the Christianized barbarians burned the library of 
Cordova. In the various intersections of histories, great 
treasures of civilization have thus been destroyed which 
can never be replaced. Until recently the peoples of the 
far Orient had enjoyed a long continuity of history with 
an undisturbed development, paralleling that of Europe 
In an interesting way. But Europe has now thoroughly 
intersected Asia and the rest of the earth. Lest we wax 
conceited over our own tolerance, we may remind our- 
selves that in burning the Summer Palace of the ancient 
rulers of China the Western armies were faithful followers 
of the Huns and destroyed treasures of art which neither 
Europe nor China can replace. 

To-day we patronize the “backward” races—all races 
but our own being “backward.” Is it certain that we are 
as superior to them as we feel? If a yellow peril or a black 
peril confront us because these races from their own his- 
toric perspective do not see things as we do, should we be 
surprised? May it not be that they have qualities which 
the enterprising European lacks and which he might well 
admire? It is true that the Western world has made great 
material strides owing to the developments of science in 
the last three hundred years. But this advantage is largely 
an historical accident. The foundations of modern science 
were laid by a few geniuses who, inspired by the love of 
truth, braved the contumely and prejudices of the day. No 
particular people or race has a monopoly of genius. Organ- 
ized groups have made use of the results of science and 
have come to subsidize science because they have been 
able to use it; but the Western nations did not as nations 
contribute science. The methods of Galileo, Newton, and 
others were an accident so far as the history of the Western 
nations is concerned. And can we be so sure that material 
achievement is the supreme standard of value? There are 
those who are doubtful. They recognize that ‘‘science 
alone may destroy this world instead of saving it’ and 


414 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


“that science in itself is not the most important thing in 
this world, but that the salvation of the world is to be 
found in the cultivation of science together with the culti- 
vation of a belief in the reality of moral and spiritual 
values.” ** Our own nation, U. 8. A., has perhaps made 
greater advance than any other in the use of science for 
material welfare. And we are prone to feel that we are the 
advance guard of civilization. But is our boasting justi- 
fied? Have we solved more of the real human problems 
than any other nation? Are we contributing more to the 
advancement of art, literature, and truth? Certainly no 
other nation would concede that we are. 

Is the struggle for dominance to continue until the 
nations of the earth have in their blind hatred destroyed 
the fruits of the civilization that the ages have accumu- 
lated? One thing is certain, that there is no hope for the 
nations of the earth unless some creative genius or geniuses 
can discover a common frame of reference which, while 
permitting the characteristic development of individuals 
and groups, allowing each to make the contribution of its 
own genius, shall still make it possible for them to live 
together. But this requires more than intellectual develop- 
ment. There must be the creating of some degree of 
mutual respect and of mutual sympathy before there can 
be mutual understanding. There must be brought about a 
new moral attitude before a successful formula can appear. 
This—or the twilight of man. 

How can we estimate what we are pleased to call the 
progress of mankind amidst these divergent currents of 
history, each with a structure and perspective of its own? 
How can we measure the Greek genius for beauty and sci- 
ence in terms of the practical achievements of Rome in 
law and social organization? How can we measure the 
values of either beauty or utility in terms of the ideal of 
holiness and salvation in the Middle Ages? And how can 


°? The quotations are from the Address of Acceptance of the Norman 
Bridge Laboratory of Physics, by the distinguished scientist, R. A. 
Millikan, 1922, Printed in Science. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 415 


we measure the respective merits of the outstanding Euro- 
pean nations of to-day—the genius of France in terms of 
Germany, and vice versa; or the genius of Britain, Italy, 
or Russia in terms of either of these or of one another? 
What impresses one is that each of the prominent nations 
is travelling with its own motion, has its own structure and 
that each interprets the other from its own frame of ref- 
erence, each having sublime confidence in the genius of its 
own history. The big nations feel very superior to the 
small nations and bully them. But is the sense of power 
an adequate measure of superiority? May it not be that 
some of the small nations are actually outstripping the big 
nations in the real values of civilization? We must not 
mistake our blindness to other perspectives for evidence 
of superiority. The passions engendered by war have 
arrested the development of civilization in the same meas- 
ure that they have increased the blindness of peoples. For 
the development of civilization is accelerated by exchange. 
Again, new currents of history have been liberated and 
who can tell the outcome for civilization? 

When we consider progress we are apt to fasten our 
attention on the collective instruments of civilization of 
which we make use. And here our advantage appears 
enormous when we contrast our own age with other ages. 
But individual culture is not to be measured in the things 
a man can use, but in the things he can create. An Ameri- 
can moron can make use of telephones, telegraphs, trains 
and automobiles. Is he therefore superior to the Eskimo 
who is creatively the master of his civilization? There are 
those who find our civilization cheap and superficial when 
compared with the greatest creative periods in human art 
and literature. Galton finds the modern European as infe- 
rior to Greece in its glory as he is superior to the African 
negro. Gladstone finds present thought slovenly compared 
to the masters of the thirteenth century. The literature 
and art of our age of hurry and bustle seem to many 
thoughtful critics to fall far short of the great masters of 
ancient Greece, the later Middle Ages, or the Renaissance. 


416 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


We no longer have the confidence of the eighteenth cen- 
tury in the speedy attainment of utopia. And to some 
honest critics the idea of progress seems an illusion of 
man’s will-to-believe. 

If we consider only the present chaos of values, the 
selfishness of nations and the stupidity of politicians, it is 
easy to give way to pessimism and to deny that the idea of 
progress has any relevancy to human history. But if we 
take the long view of human history that biology and 
paleontology are opening up to us, can we deny that there 
has been advance since the first apelike ancestors of man 
appeared? For while man did not descend from the pres- 
ent apes, the evidence shows that man and ape were closely 
related in their origin. They had a nearly equal start. The 
distance from Pithecanthropus to Newton is vastly greater 
than that which separates Pithecanthropus from his ape 
kin; and we need not suppose that Pithecanthropus is the 
first in the human series. If we view man as the paleontol- 
ogist views him, we can hardly deny advance. And if we 
view man as the anthropologist views him, the advance is 
even more striking. We need only arrange the tools of 
man from the earliest known implements which show but 
little if any change from crude nature to the inventions of 
modern man. While the study of the evolution of tools 
opens up the longest vista into the development of human 
civilization with its various cross-currents, the evolution 
of language and institutions from the simplest beginnings 
is no less striking even though less known. Human history 
in the large is not a mere succession of events, even though 
our limited data make it rash to state any general law. By 
selecting a certain aspect at any rate, we can discover 
cumulative reference over periods of history. Ages before 
written records are available, we can arrange human events 
into periods and show the cumulation of culture and the 
interrelation of cultures as has been illustrated strikingly 
in recent years in the case of the history of Egypt. 

If we consider the brief part of human history of which 
we have written records, the most fundamental and con- 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 417 


tinuous aspect is not the advance in knowledge which has 
been sporadic for the most part and only cumulative in a 
scientific sense during the last three hundred years, but 
the advance in human freedom, the enlargement and deep- 
ening of moral values. The remarkable expansion in 
knowledge for a fitful though brilhant period in ancient 
Greece and in a more cumulative way since the Renais- 
sance may itself be viewed as an aspect of moral emanci- 
pation. The ancient Greeks made the first historical exper- 
iments in democracy, in community government, albeit on 
a foundation of slavery. While slavery was recognized in 
Roman law, it was not congenial to Roman character. The 
practice of manumission grew rapidly and, to the conserva- 
tives alarmingly, during the empire. This is all the more 
remarkable since the slaves were for the most part captives 
from the conquests of Rome and belonged to other peoples 
and races. In general the respect for human rights broad- 
ened vastly in the thousand years of pagan Rome; and 
Roman law and institutions furnished the background and 
school of the new Europe that rose on the ruins of Rome. 
Christianity marks an epoch in the emphasis on human 
freedom and human dignity, though the practical fruits 
have been slow in maturing. But the idea of the father- 
hood of God and brotherhood of man was at any rate a 
leaven for a new order during the political chaos of the 
Middle Ages. In the church men did rise from the lowliest 
station in society to the very highest office. Work became 
in some vocations a craft and conscious of its dignity and 
power; and even the feudal tenant was a step higher than 
the slave, however hard his lot. It is well to remember 
that if the Middle Ages created the feudal lord, they also 
made the first beginnings in representative government, 
without which our larger modern self-government would 
be impossible. 

With the advent of modern science and industrial inven- 
tions, the struggle for human freedom has been greatly 
accelerated, and the end is not yet. Indeed what we have 
attained seems superficial enough when contrasted with 


418 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


what is yet to be won before every man, woman, and child 
shall have the opportunity to realize their capacities in a 
just social order. But dark as the picture of human wrong 
seems to-day, we must remember that the darkness would 
not seem so dark if we did not contrast it with the light of 
a new conscience. Slavery constituted no problem in the 
moral philosophy of the Greeks. We no longer believe that 
class distinctions are fixed in nature, however thorny the 
road to real democracy. We have broken through the hor- 
rible pessimism of St. Augustine and the Middle Ages as 
regards the nature of man. And though we cannot share 
the optimism of the eighteenth century as to the perfecti- 
bility of man and the dramatic realization of liberty, equal- 
ity and fraternity, we are perhaps doing more in our prosy 
way to accomplish those ideals. At any rate the instru- 
ments of political democracy and education can win for 
us these ideals when we learn to use these instruments 
wisely; and we, like our predecessors, must learn through 
suffering. There is no other way. It is true that the inter- 
pretation of this struggle for freedom has not as yet found 
adequate expression in art and poetry. Modern democracy 
is still waiting for a Homer or Shakespere. But artistic 
expression is not wanting, and when our purposes are 
clearer, the expression will come—richer, if not more beau- 
tiful, than the expressions of earlier civilizations. When 
the great interpreter comes he shall do for our complex, 
struggling life what Homer did for Greece, what Dante 
did for the Middle Ages, what Shakespere did for the 
buoyant life of the Renaissance. But shall we know him 
when he comes? The Son of Man comes to His own and 
His own receive Him not. It was ever thus. The group 
is only wise in retrospect. 

The long view of history encourages us to believe that 
man is part of the creative advance of nature, dark though 
the facts may seem at times. Because man must discover 
the way through trial and error, we must expect many 
failures and many irregularities in the advance. Since 
history is a real adventure and not a puppet show of logical 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 419 


categories, we may fail of the highest possible realization 
on this earth. At best we must work in faith following 
the light as God gives us to see the light. For we can see 
but a fragment of the vast order of which we are a part. 
Yet we must strive to break through our narrow centrism 
and try to view reality as a whole, for we may be sure that, 
in the large, human history is a process of adaptation to a 
cosmic order. This makes the idea of progress vastly more 
complicated than when man was made the centre of the 
universe, whether in the old theological theory of salva- 
tion or in the philosophy of the monistic idealists who 
apotheosized human reason. But we must believe that 
somehow there is a nisus in the creative advance of nature 
which will carry us the next step if we strive creatively and 
loyally to prepare ourselves for it. 

History, in the sense we are using it, is more complex 
and empirical than in the monistic theories of Hegel and 
Croce. It is not just the staging of thought, the making 
explicit of the implications of one logical perspective. It 
involves real time and real pluralism, with the empirical 
relativity consequent upon such a world structure. The 
categories of valuation are themselves relative to historic 
advance, however dogmatic such thinkers as Hegel may 
be in asserting them and in forcing the facts of history into 
their artificial schemes. We may say that Hegel and 
Croce stand in the same relation to history as we conceive 
it as Newton stands to Einstein. Instead of interpreting 
history a priori in accordance with abstract models of our 
invention, we must learn to take account of its empirical 
nuances. The neat schemes of nineteenth-century philos- 
ophers for reading the events of history have all proved 
mythological since scientific anthropology applied itself 
to studying the facts in the concrete. There is not just 
one set way in which social institutions or art or industry 
develop, but the steps and forms vary with the concrete 
conditions—with the local traditions, with social inter- 
change, with geographical conditions, but most of all with 
individual inventiveness and its fructifying of tradition. 


420 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


Finally, if we are to understand the curvature of the small 
fragment of history with which we are acquainted we must 
strive to know something of its relation to the structure of 
the cosmos. Human history with its valuations is itself 
part of the creative advance of nature and relative to this 
advance. And how little we know of this advance! 
The Hegelian conception of history is fundamentally 
anthropocentric. The mind of the philosopher (under the 
euphonious name of the absolute) is conceived as consti- 
tutive of reality. The interpretation of history becomes 
identical with history. ~ All history, therefore, is contem- 
poraneous. The mind not merely makes the significance 
of history for us, in interpreting it, but creates history. 
This is supposed to hold of all history—the history of 
nature as well as human nature. In fact, nature is but the 
product of the activity of mind. To quote Croce: 


In the philosophy which I have sketched, Reality 
is affirmed as Mind, not a mind which stands above 
the world or runs through the world, but a mind which 
coincides with the world. Nature is shown to be a 
moment and product of the mind itself. Dualism, 
therefore, (at least that form of dualism which has 
tormented thought from Thales to Herbert Spencer), 
is surmounted with its transcendence whether of a 
materialistic or theological principle. Mind, which 
is the world, is the mind which is evolving, and there- 
fore it is both one and diverse at the same time, an 
eternal solution and eternal problem. The self- con- 
sciousness of this mind is the philosophy which is its 
history or its history which is its philosophy, both 
substantially one and identical. And the conscious- 
ness is identical with the self-consciousness, that is, 
they are distinct and yet one, like life and thought.” 


But Mind written with a capital M is after all our human 
mind. And history becomes a human construction in 


eA Storiographia, p. 286. quoted by H. Wildon Carr in his excellent 
work, The Philosophy of Benedetto Croce, p. 205. 


REALITY AND SPACE-TIME PERSPECTIVES 421 


which the creative passing of nature is evaporated into 
verbal abstractions which are no less empty because they 
are put in the mouth of the absolute. 

History is not the staging of a scheme of abstract cate- 
gories—not even if we give it the euphonious name of the 
absolute—but a pluralistic process of adaptation in which 
the earth in its history and complexity strives to get into 
rapport with the larger whole. Instead of construing 
history anthropocentrically and reducing it to categories of 
our artificial logic, we must recognize that human history 
is part of cosmic history and must be understood with ref- 
erence to cosmic history. It is part of the history of the 
earth, an integration of its crust, in its interaction with 
the structure of the universe. It involves interaction not 
only among human histories but also with other histories 
and levels of the cosmos. Human history is part of the 
creative passing of nature with its cycles and determined, 
in the last analysis, by adjustment to the whole. Only 
so can we understand the creative advance in geological 
history, including human history. If we would see the full 
significance of our ephemeral existence, we should have to 
understand the law of the whole. If we would understand 
our immortality, we should have to know the law of con- 
servation within the whole and our significance for the 
whole. We have seen that the effective conservation of 
energy in the cosmos implies the conservation of struc- 
tural levels. Else energy would run down to a dead level 
of dissipated heat. The fact is that energy without struc- 
ture is an abstraction. We must postulate the conserva- 
tion of organization as well as the conservation of the 
quantity of energy. We can no more conceive the pattern 
of energy than the quantity as coming from nothing or 
disappearing into nothing. As the quantity of energy 
must be conserved within the whole, so must the structure 
be conserved in the whole. But structure must exist as 
individual. It cannot exist in the abstract. The con- 
servation of structure must, therefore, mean the conserva- 
tion of the individual as well as the species, for species 


422 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


without individuals are abstractions. We do not know 
the complete cycle of human life within the whole. But 
in some way it depends upon adjustment to the genius of 
the whole. In general we may say that immortality is not 
a state, but a quality of structure. The significance of life 
will be conserved, whether it be individual significance or 
group significance, if it can be taken up into the creative 
advance of reality, 7.e., if it proves to be an aspect of cos- 
mic structure and not an error of our partial temporal 
adaptation. If we take the geocentric point of view of 
evolution, then indeed human history with its values and 
ideals is an exotic glory. For humanity, with the higher 
levels of thought and beauty, seems to be doomed, so far 
as our earth is concerned, to disappear after its brief day 
of strife into the flux from whence it came, as the evening 
sun sinks blood-red into the storm-swept sea, colouring 
the waves for a moment with its crimson—and then the 
enveloping night. It is only from the point of view of 
cosmic exchange that history and value can have ultimate 
significance, for then what disappears here is conserved 
yonder to participate in the creative advance of nature 
towards God, the supreme actuality. 


CHAPTER VIII 
RELATIVITY AND THE LAW oF THE WHOLE 


As I stand enwrapt in the mystic silence of the night, look- 
ing up into the star-strewn immensities of cosmic space, I 
find myself in imagination a grain of besouled dust on 
the extreme wing tip of Cygnus,’ reflecting like a diamond 
the colour and movement of the whole. Even as I gaze 
in wonder, imagination transforms the world of stars into 
flocks of giant wild swans, sailing high in stately proces- 
sion—swans of many colours, red, yellow, green, blue, 
white, and black, wheeling about in the vast expanse, 
shifting positions, re-forming their ranks, yet preserving 
withal the spiral pattern of their galaxy. Perhaps future 
generations with improved artificial senses may yet hear 
the harmonious, rhythmic swish of their wings. Their 
path is prescribed by the genius of the whole. They shall 
not miss their way in the transparent ether sea, and in 
due time, with the turn of the cosmic year, their homing 
instinct shall drive them to seek the same familiar scenes 
again. They live their life cycle in vast eons, but they are 
not eternal. They too are born and die. In the throes of 
birth they shine with a crimson glory; and blood-red they 
- are when they sing their swan-song in the throes of death, 
but in the prime of life their radiance is purest white. 
Their real life secret of love and hate and glorious adven- 
ture, we know only in human experience. But our lives, 
too, are part of the star stream, an integration of its energy, 
eddies in its movement. Their course is determined by 
cosmic adjustment. They find their significance in the 
law of the whole. 


? According to astronomers, our solar system is on the edge of the 
constellation, Cygnus, the Swan. H. Shapley, the Scientific Monthly, 
Vole VITL sp. 429; 


493 


424 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


Cosmic Adjustment 


It is the cosmic implications of the theory of relativity 
-_which appeal to my imagination—the law of cosmic adjust- 
ment, cosmic equilibrium, cosmic curvature. This I count 
the most significant contribution of the theory of relativ- 
ity to cosmic philosophy, though this aspect of the move- 
ment has been largely neglected. Just as in the theory 
of Heraclitus, the dark genius of antiquity, his contempo- 
rarles and successors seized upon the aspect of flux, but 
neglected the complementary aspect—the cosmic path, the 
law of exchange and equilibrium—so, in the case of the 
modern theory of relativity, the small minds of critics and 
imitators have seized upon the protean variation of per- 
spectives, but have failed to see the significance of the 
other aspect—the curvature of the world, the law of 
dynamic equilibrium—without which relativity means 
chaos. 

In the grasp of the cosmic implications of the theory 
of relativity it appears to me that Weyl passes Einstein. 
The difference between the two may be illustrated in their 
conception of the congruence of time intervals and lengths. 
According to Einstein, 


If two ideal clocks are going at the same rate at any 
time and at any place (being then in immediate prox- 
imity to each other), they will always go at the same 
rate, no matter where and when they are again com- 
pared with each other at one place. If this law were 
not valid for real clocks, the proper frequencies for 
the separate atoms of the same chemical elements 
would not be in such exact agreement as experience 
demonstrates. The existence of sharp spectral lines 
is a convincing proof of the above-mentioned principle 
of practical geometry.” 


The same generalization is made for lengths: “If two 
* Sidelights of Relativity, p. 38. 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 425 


tracts are found to be equal once and anywhere, they are 
equal always and everywhere,” * 7.e., whenever they can 
be brought together for comparison. (Both the lengths 
and time intervals may be different in the meantime.) But 
this generalization is made to rest on pragmatic grounds. 
It lacks the support of a comprehensive theory. Weyl 
rightly objects, I think, that we have no guaranty that 
lengths and clocks which coincide at one point will coin- 
cide at another point unless we can deduce such coinci- 
dence from a law of world-curvature. Only thus can we 
be assured of congruence whether over indefinitely small 
areas or astronomically large areas. 

Weyl distinguishes in a lucid way between two kinds 
of determination in nature—the determination of a mag- 
nitude by “persistence” and by “adjustment.” I can do 
no better than use his illustrations: 


We can give to the axis of a rotating top any arbi- 
trary direction in space. This arbitrary original direc- 
tion then determines for all time the direction of the 
axis of the top when left to itself, by means of a 
tendency of persistence which operates from moment 
to moment; the axis experiences at every point a 
parallel displacement. The exact opposite is the case 
for a magnetic needle in a magnetic field. Its direc- 
tion is determined at each instant independently of 
the condition of the system at other instants by the 
fact that, in virtue of its constitution, the system 
adjusts itself in an unequivocally determined manner 
to the field in which it is situated. A priori we have 
no ground for assuming as integrable a transfer which 
results purely from the tendency of persistence.* 


The Newtonian law of persistence is, of course, artificial, 
since it assumes an isolated motion. We have no evidence 
of any such motions, though light rays away from large 
masses of matter seem to move practically in a straight line 


ALDI. Div ods 
* Nature, Vol. CVI, p. 802. 


426 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


and with constant velocity. In our empirical world, per- 
sistence itself is determined by adjustment. It was the 
fact that we could not in our experience trust to absolute 
persistence; that even light is affected by adjustment, 
which led to the general theory of relativity. 

In approaching the problem of relativity in terms of 
the electromagnetic field, Weyl has the advantage in the 
generality of his formulation. For here science has dis- 
covered a universal law of equilibrium, a genuine “world- 
curvature,’ internal to the system. Hence it is possible 
to state the law of determination by adjustment with 
exactness. Only on the basis of such a law can we 
understand 


why an electron, even after an indefinitely long 
time, always possesses an unaltered charge, and why 
the same charge e is associated with all electrons. 
This circumstance shows that the charge is not deter- 
mined by persistence, but by adjustment and that 
there can exist only one state of equilibrium of the 
negative electricity, to which the corpuscle adjusts 
itself at every instant. For the same reason we can 
conclude the same thing for the spectral lines of atoms. 
The one thing common to atoms emitting the same 
frequency is their constitution, and not the agreement 
of their frequencies on the occasion of an encounter 
in the distant past. Similarly, the length of measur- 
ing rods is obviously determined by adjustment, for 
I could not give this measuring-rod in this field-posi- 
tion any other length arbitrarily (say double or treble . 
length) in place of the length which it now possesses, 
in the manner in which I can at will predetermine its 
direction. The theoretical possibility of a determina- 
tion of length by adjustment is given as the conse- 
quence of the world-curvature, which arises from the 
metrical field according to a complicated mathematical 
law. As a result of its constitution, the measuring- 
rod assumes a length which possesses this or that 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 427 


value, in relation to the radius of curvature of the 


field.” 


A stupendous conception in which relativity is outrela- 
tived. We must admit that the conception of adjustment 
is the only fruitful way of considering values in our empir- 
ical world. It is in this way that we must understand 
the path of motion, not by an a@ priori conception of a 
natural path. 

The fundamental difference between the special theory 
of relativity and the general theory is not that light loses 
its privileged character in the latter theory and becomes 
curved and retarded in the neighbourhood of aggregations 
of matter. This is rather a consequence than a determin- 
ing factor. The essential difference is that we no longer 
deal with reality as isolated perspectives of space-time, but 
recognize that the character of these perspectives is deter- 
mined by adjustment within the dynamic equilibrium of 
the whole. Nothing exists in isolation. The world in which 
we live and in which our earth floats is not a world where 
things are eternally what they are by persistence in the 
isolation of empty space, but it 1s a world of interaction 
where things are what they are and move as they move 
by adjustment. This adjustment is not a Newtonian 
adjustment—not the instantaneous action of bodies at a 
distance over a homogeneous, isotropic space. But the 
concentrations and organizations of energy which we call 
bodies affect the character of the medium, the curvature 
of the field. The geometrical properties of physical space 
are dependent upon the aggregations of matter and their 
distances. In predicting motion, therefore, we must take 
account not merely of the motion of isolated bodies or 
light rays but also of the curvature of the medium in which 
the motion takes place. This curvature determines the 
path of the motion. The geometric qualities of the cosmic 
medium vary with the dynamic distribution of the bodies 
as shadows vary with the light. No part of the medium 


® Ibid., p. 802. 


428 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


has a constant curvature. Therefore we must have a 
space-time geometry. 

Not only do the properties of the cosmic medium vary 
with the dynamic energy distribution, but the geometric 
properties of bodies also depend upon this distribution. 
Properties can no longer be conceived as belonging to 
things in isolation. Lengths and durations are determined 
by adjustment. Gravitational mass is not a mysterious 
property inherent in things. Since all things fall in the 
same way in free space, irrespective of their size or texture, 
gravitation is equivalent to inertia. But inertia is not an 
absolute property which things possess in isolation. It 
has been the custom to distinguish two kinds of inertia or 
mass—potential or gravitational mass, sometimes called 
proper mass, and kinetic mass, sometimes called apparent 
mass. It is now recognized that the mass of matter 
increases with motion and takes a sudden leap when 
velocities approximate that of light. One is not likely to 
consider this mass as an absolute property of the body. 
It is different with gravitational or potential mass. This 
has been conceived by classical mechanics as an intrinsic 
and absolute property of things in isolation. Mach first 
conjectured that “inertia depends upon the mutual action 
of bodies.” ° This conjecture is supported by the theory 
of relativity. According to Einstein (1) ‘‘the inertia of a 
body must increase when ponderable masses are piled in 
its neighbourhood”; (2) “a body must experience an accel- 
erating force when neighbouring masses are accelerated 
and, in fact, the force must be in the same direction as the 
acceleration”; (3) “a rotating hollow body must generate 
inside of itself a ‘Coriolis field’ which deflects moving bod- 
ies in the sense of the rotation, and a radial centrifugal 
field as well.” ’ 

What counts for our purpose is that gravitational mass 
is a function of energy interaction, of dynamic adjustment. 
Both gravitational mass and kinetic mass are statable in 


* The Meaning of Relativity, A. Einstein, p. 110 and p. 119. 
Vlbid.sp.41110, 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 429 


terms of energy to the great simplification of science. As 
Hinstein puts it: “Mass and energy are equivalent.” ° 
“The momentum per unit volume and the flow of energy 
are equal to each other.” ’ Mass and energy therefore 
“are only different expressions for the same thing. The 
mass of a body is not constant; it varies with changes in 
its energy.” °° Within the atom, the mass of the negative 
electrons is practically kinetic, while the gravitational 
mass is contributed almost entirely by the nucleus. Light, 
too, is material and follows the lines of gravitational curva- 
ture as has now been clearly proved. It has mechanical 
mass as is evidenced in the bombardment of comets away 
from the engulfing gravitational field of the sun, as well 
as through experiments in the physical laboratory. There 
remain then energy and space-time; and the gravitational 
field—the field constituted by matter—“determines the 
metrical laws of the space-time continuum.” ** The prop- 
erties of matter and the geometric properties of physi- 
cal space are alike determined by adjustment. As matter 
must be conceived as an organization of energy, the con- 
cepts of science are enormously simplified. Instead of 
space, time, matter, mass and energy, we have the trinity 
of space, time and energy or rather energy in space-time 
perspectives. Of the three concepts, energy tends to over- 
lap, for, in the concrete, energy becomes action with its 
equivalent effects. In action or an energy system all three 
concepts are involved. 

Determination by adjustment is the master key of the 
universe. Everything is determined by adjustment—the 
small as well as the large. The electron has a constant 
charge, a constant size, by adjustment. “An electron,” 
says Eddington, “could never decide how large it ought to 
be unless there existed some length independent of itself 
for it to compare itself with.” ** The size of the electron 

STbid., p. 57. 

° Tbid., p. 54. 

me eLDIO.. DDL; 


go Disk, Os 
7? Quoted by Bertrand Russell, The A, B, C of Atoms, pp. 168, 169. 


430 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


is determined by the radius of the world curvature, which 
is constant. What is true of the size of electrons is true 
of the size of stars. The size of stars varies about a mean 
in a way that could not be accounted for by chance. Stars 
are not indefinitely large or indefinitely small. If we con- 
sider spiral nebule as universes comparable to our galactic 
system, we may well believe that they are determined as 
regards size and shape by adjustment within the whole. 
What is true of the size of the energy units is true of their 
orbits. These too are determined by adjustment and, in 
the last analysis, by costhic curvature. The units, large 
or small, find their path in the equilibrium of the whole. 
There is a boundary assigned to them. 

The course of events in time as well as in space is deter- 
mined by adjustment. This does not seem to be clear 
to Eddington: 


We have said that an electron would not know how 
large it ought to be unless there existed independent 
lengths in space for it to measure itself against. Simi- 
larly it would not know how long it ought to be unless 
there existed a length in time for it to measure itself 
against. But there is no radius in curvature in a time- 
like direction; so the electron does not know how 
long it ought to exist. Therefore it just goes on exist- 
ing indefinitely.*° 


But we cannot thus separate time from space in the real 
world. The electron persists because of the space-time 
curvature of the cosmos. And not only that but it enters 
as an element into certain space-time patterns, by virtue 
of the space-time structure of the whole. Only the struc- 
ture of the whole is constant and this structure is dynamic. 
Space relations are included within the forward and back- 
ward looking temporal order. Space-time events are 
determined by interaction within the cosmic order. They 


** The Mathematical Theory of Relativity, p. 155. Quoted by Russell, 
Ibid., p. 169. 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 431 


enter into new creative synthesis or into dissolution, they 
are uniform, accelerated or retarded, they have the quality 
or pattern which they have by virtue of adjustment within 
the dynamic equilibrium of the whole. Their degrees of 
freedom and their stability, their rhythmic periodicities, 
whether it be periodicities of the breaking up of atoms into 
electrons and the recombination of electrons into atoms, 
or the periodicities of social revolutions and the encrusting 
of individuals anew into customs and institutions, are 
determined in the last analysis by cosmic curvature. I do 
not mean that this is a passive falling into line. All adjust- 
ment is a trial and error process. The parts are energies 
with a motion of their own and offer resistance to a change 
of direction. They must find the cosmic path through 
interaction and eventually fall into line because with refer- 
ence to the future it proves to be the line of least 
resistance. 

The course of the creative passing of nature is thus 
determined by the dynamic equilibrium of the whole and 
this equilibrium is determined by cosmic interaction. This 
is true of the entire course of history with its complexity 
of patterns and levels, and not merely of the quantitative 
passing of nature with which the physical sciences deal. 
The dynamic organization of any part-history in the cos- 
mos is no less due to the dynamie structure of the whole 
than is the size of the elementary constituents. The nisus 
or direction in any part history is determined by adjust- 
ment within the dynamic structure of the whole with its 
eternally co-existent levels. Here nisus comes to have 
definite significance and is not a postulate left in the air 
and arbitrarily assumed. This is a world of pluralism— 
plural energy systems held in subordination for the time 
being within the control of the whole—until they have 
completed their rhythm and are released for future service. 
The history of our earth, moving as an integral unit, is 
thus conditioned in its development—-its emergence of 


432 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


types and levels—by its interaction with the space-time 
structure of the whole. There is only one unconditioned 
reality and that is the dynamic whole. All part-histories 
are determined by adjustment within this whole. 


Cosmic Space 

There has been a twofold emphasis in recent science— 
the emphasis on space, on the one hand, and on matter, 
on the other; on fields and on quanta; on geometry and 
on number. The theory of relativity emphasizes space, 
geometry, fields rather than entities. Motions take place 
according to the geometrical set of space-time. But, on 
the other hand, the geometrical structure of space is deter- 
mined by the dynamic action of matter, and matter exists 
in quanta and acts in quanta, therefore the abstract contin- 
uum of space is checkered into varying geometrical quanta. 
All interaction involves, on the one hand, a medium 
of communication—space or ether—and, on the other 
hand, quanta to be communicated. Both the structure 
of the medium and the size of the quanta are determined 
by world-curvature, and world-curvature is determined by 
the reciprocal action of energies, existing at various levels. 

The conception of cosmic space is fundamental in the 
theory of relativity and in any cosmic philosophy. Space 
is the universal medium in which the interaction of ener- 
gies is staged. Without space we can have no metric con- 
ceptions such as distance, size and shape. LHinstein is 
right that space is not a nonentity. It has physical real- 
ity. Leucippus and Democritus, who first distinguished 
space as non-being from being, insisted that non-being is 
as real as being. Since by being they meant material 
atoms, what they did was to contrast space and matter. 
But if space is an empirical reality, its properties, like 
those of matter, must be ascertained through experience, 
z.€., Space must be for us the sort of medium that we 
require for the description of the interaction of energies 
in the cosmos. 

Certain it is that we cannot rule out the concept of 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 433 


ontological space from our account of reality as the sub- 
jectivists try to do. The process of interaction and 
exchange implies space. This may not be so clear in 
qualitative change. But qualities, immediate though they 
seem to introspection, are functions of energy relations. 
The sense quality, red, is a characteristic of the interaction 
between a certain physical energy of the cosmos and a 
certain organization of energies in our retina. The change 
of the red to a dark brown and finally into a dark grey 
with the coming of twilight is again due to energy rela- 
tions—the decreasing intensity of light and the specific 
reaction of our retina. We always find that qualitative 
change involves a definite change in energy relations, 
which, in turn, imply space as well as time. Nor can we 
get along without space in describing mental relations. 
It is implied in social exchange, social interstimulation, as 
well as in physical. We cannot live inside one another’s 
skins, nor can we live within our own skins, though the 
skin as the boundary of an organism plays its part in 
marking off the relative perspectives of our perception. 
We live within fields of interaction, and within this inter- 
communication distance plays its part. We cannot have 
the same concrete relations within long distances as we 
can within the face to face distances, spite of all the mod- 
ern aids. It is not just a difference in the intensity of the 
particular type of interstimulation. But it is a difference 
in quality—in that type of creative complexity, that syn- 
thetic compresence of various factors, which constitutes 
reality. 

After having discarded the old concept of the ether, 
whatever that may have been, Einstein identifies ether 
and space. “The conception of the ether has again 
acquired an intelligible content, although this content 
differs widely from that of the ether of the mechanical 
undulatory theory of light. The ether of the general 
theory of relativity is a medium which is itself devoid of 
all mechanical and kinematical qualities, but helps to 
determine mechanical and electromagnetic events. What 


434 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


is fundamentally new in the ether of the general theory of 
relativity as opposed to the ether of Lorentz consists in 
this, that the state of the former is at every place deter- 
mined by connections with the matter and the state of 
the ether in neighbouring places, which are amenable to 
law in the form of differential equations, whereas the state 
of the Lorentzian ether in the absence of electromagnetic 
fields is conditioned by nothing outside itself, and is every- 
where the same. The ether of the general theory of rela- 
tivity is transmuted conceptually into the ether of Lorentz 
if we substitute constants for the functions of space which 
describe the former, disregarding the causes which condi- 
tion its state. Thus we may also say, I think, that the 
ether of the general theory of relativity is the outcome of 
the Lorentzian ether through relativation.” ** 

It is clear, then, that space according to the theory of 
relativity is endowed with physical qualities, it is identical 
with ether, it is the medium for the propagation of light, 
it furnishes the possibility of space-time measurements 
(measuring rods and clocks), “but this ether may not be 
thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of 
ponderable media, as consisting of parts that may be 
tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be 
applied to it.” “* While, however, it is absolutely continu- 
ous in that it has no parts, yet the geometric determina- 
tion of it has a certain discreteness. There is no electro- 
magnetic or gravitational field within a particle or in its 
immediate vicinity. Hence there is a certain quantum 
determination, though Einstein conceives his molluses as 
indefinitely small. Within these, as we have seen, Euclid- 
lan geometry applies. 

While Einstein’s ether-space is conceived in general as 
curved, the curvature is not intrinsic to the ether. If so, 
it would be constant and we should not require time and 
matter to define it. But curvature varies with the masses 
of matter and the space-time distribution of matter. It 


** A. Einstein, Sedelights on Relativity, pp. 19 and 20. 
*® Ibid., pp. 19 and 20. 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 435 


can be defined only when we know the aggregations of 
matter and their space-time distances. It decreases rap- 
idly away from matter and is nearly neutral at vast dis- 
tances from aggregations of matter. It is not therefore 
impossible to imagine space without gravitational poten- 
tials as Einstein holds.** In his special theory he con- 
ceives bodies as moving uniformly in empty space; and 
even in the general theory of relativity he succeeds in imag- 
ining small areas of a Euclidian character. He is con- 
stantly employing the conception of empty space as a 
contrast te Lis gravitational space, and he conceives the 
world as finite in order that energy may not escape into 
empty space. He is certainly inconsistent in saying that 
he cannot conceive empty space. If it is a ghost for Hin- 
stein, the ghost is not laid! 

The really novel aspect of Einstein’s conception of space 
is that the geometrical properties of space can be deter- 
mined by matter. But that after all is an empirical ques- 
tion. Einstein’s conception of space curvature has met 
with brilliant success so far. The three tests, set by Ein- 
stein, may be regarded as fairly met. There is no ques- 
tion about two of those—the bending of star rays in the 
immediate vicinity of the sun and the explanation of the 
perihelion of Mercury; and Professor St. John, on the 
basis of a revised estimate of the pressure in the interior 
of stars, has recently come to the conclusion that the retar- 
dation of light in gravitational fields—or, more precisely, 
the shifting of the spectrum towards red in the case of 
light emitted from substances in the sun as compared to 
emissions from the same substances on the earth—agrees, 
within the probability of error, with Einstein’s prediction. 

The ether-space of Einstein must be capable, on the 
one hand, of being determined by matter into a rigid geo- 
metrical structure in order to function as the gravitational 
field of our world and guide the course of the motions 
within it; on the other hand, it must function as the 
medium for the transmission of light and other radiant 

pet. 1p. nel, 


436 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


energies. It seems to have succeeded in meeting the first 
requirement. But we must wait for a satisfactory theory 
of light before we can say whether it can meet the latter 
requirement. Einstein rejects the mechanical undulatory 
theory of light with the old concept of the ether. If the 
quantum theory of light prevails, there would seem to be 
no need for any medium except space for the communica- 
tion of light. The main obstacle are the phenomena of 
interference which are apparently explained on the undu- 
latory theory of light, but have not yet been successfully 
met on the quantum theory. It is difficult to imagine 
how a medium without parts and without mechanical or 
kinematical properties could communicate vibrations in 
the manner required by the undulatory theory. If, on the 
other hand, the phenomena of interference can be 
accounted for in terms of quanta of energy, this difficulty 
disappears. It may be that the interference which appears 
to our sense perception is due, not to the cancellation of 
the energy pulses of light, but to the filling up of the gaps 
between the light pulses with other pulses of light, so as 
to produce a continuous instead of an intermittent stimu- 
lation on our organism. We know in the ease of sound 
that the stimulus must be intermittent and that a steady 
pressure produces no sensation of sound. If this is true 
in the case of light, then mutual cancellation of energy 
pulses would not be necessary. But in that case there 
should still be mechanical pressure which could be meas- 
ured. In the meantime we must wait for the further 
advance of science. 

Because he is impressed with the danger of matter and 
energy being dissipated into empty space, Einstein pos- 
tulates a curved universe, unbounded like a sphere or an 
ellinse, but finite. No doubt the conception of curvature 
is fundamental to Einstein’s theory, but it does not imply 
necessarily either the finitude of space or the finitude of 
the cosmos. Einstein presents the following arguments 
against the conception of a space-infinite, and for the con- 
ception of a space-bounded universe: 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 4837 


(1) From the standpoint of the theory of relativ- 
ity, the condition for a closed surface is very much 
simpler than the corresponding boundary condition 
at infinity of the quasi-Euclidian structure of the uni- 
verse. (2) The idea that Mach expressed, that inertia 
depends upon the mutual action of bodies, is con- 
tained, to a first approximation in the equations of 
the theory of relativity; it follows from these equa- 
tions that inertia depends, at least in part, upon 
mutual action between masses. As it is unsatisfac- 
tory to make the assumption that inertia depends in 
part upon mutual actions and in part upon an inde- 
pendent property of space, Mach’s idea gains in prob- 
ability. But this idea of Mach’s corresponds only to 
a finite universe, bounded in space, and not to a quasi- 
Euclidian, infinite universe. From the standpoint 
of epistemology it is more satisfying to have the 
mechanical properties of space completely determined 
by matter, and this is the case only in a space-bounded 
universe. (3) An infinite universe is possible only 
if the mean density of matter in the universe vanishes. 
Although such an assumption is logically possible, it 
is less probable than the assumption that there is a 
finite mean density of matter in the universe.*’ 


Thus Einstein, like Parmenides of old, envisages a finite 
world in the form of a sphere; and, like Parmenides, he 
denies the existence of empty space outside, on the ground 
that it is inconceivable. The dogmatism of Einstein is 
likely to give rise to objections similar to those raised 
against Parmenides. For there will be those who can 
imagine empty space outside such a finite universe. But 
let us now examine his proofs. The argument from sim- 
plicity is not convincing, for a theory must in any case 
be complex enough to meet the facts. A theory may be 
too simple. In the second place, the idea that gravita- 
tional inertia depends upon the mutual action of bodies 

17 A, Hinstein, The Meaning of Relativity, p. 110. 


438 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


does not require that space shall be finite. It only requires 
that there shall be such a distribution of matter in any 
one gravitational world, that there is a large nucleus and 
a thinning out of bodies towards the margin. Such a dis- 
tribution we find in our galactic system. Since matter, 
according to Hinstein, determines the curvature of space 
in its vicinity, in accordance with the quantity and 
dynamic distribution of the aggregates of matter, we are 
not concerned with the finitude of space, but with the 
closed character of the gravitational field within the space 
medium. Space might be infinite and yet the world might 
be finite in the manner in which Einstein pictures it. 
Such a universe would be an island in infinite space. 

Einstein himself has pointed out the independent char- 
acter of the electromagnetic field. 


The existence of the gravitational field is msepa- 
rably bound up with space. On the other hand a 
part of space may very well be imagined without an 
electromagnetic field; thus in contrast with the gravi- 
tational field, the electromagnetic field seems to be 
only secondarily linked to the ether, the formal 
nature of the electromagnetic field being in no way 
determined by that of gravitational ether.** 


Matter and space are, at any rate, conceptually separable: 


Since, according to our present conception, the ele- 
mentary particles of matter are also, in their essence, 
nothing else than condensations of the electromagnetic 
field, our present view of the universe presents two 
realities which are completely separated from each 
other conceptually, although connected causally, 
namely gravitational ether and electromagnetic field, 
or—as they might also be called—space and matter.’ 


But if matter determines the gravitational field of space 
and we can imagine space without an electromagnetic. 


** A. Einstein, Sidelights on Relativity, p. 21. 
nek OU t yee 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 489 


field, we certainly can conceive an empty or non-gravita- 
tional space. For each island universe it would still hold 


that 


it must of necessity be spatially unbounded and of 
finite magnitude, its magnitude being determined by 


that mean density, . . . if there exists a mean 
density, no matter how small, of the matter in the 
universe.”° 


We might conceive an infinite number of closed island 
universes such as Hinstein’s universe, with no connecting 
energy field—huge, windowless monads, without any com- 
munication with one another. There is no theoretical diffi- 
culty in conceiving an infinite number of such monads. 
The island universes would correspond to the rational 
numbers and space would furnish the continuum—curved 
in the neighbourhood of the islands of matter, but for the 
most part neutral like Euclidian space. That there is no 
logical impossibility in an infinite collection, even if we 
cannot count it, has been abundantly proved by modern 
mathematics. Such collections have properties of their 
own which are quite distinct from those of finite collec- 
tions; for example, that a part of an infinite collection 
can be put into a one to one correspondence with the whole. 
Such properties lead to paradoxes only when confused with 
those of finite collections. It is not necessary, however, 
nor is it congenial to reason, to conceive such an arbitrary 
distribution of energy. It is possible, I think, to conceive 
the island universes as closed gravitationally so far as 
the space-time distribution of bodies is concerned, and yet 
to regard cosmic space as curved by the distribution of 
universes ad infinitum. It is not necessary to assume the 
finitude of the cosmos to safeguard the escaping of energy 
into empty space. ‘The cosmic field of energy may be 
closed and yet be infinite, 2.e., if there is an infinite number 
of universes. The combined effect of the total number of 


=° Ibvd., p. 20. 


440 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


universes might be sufficient to canalize streams of radiant 
energy such as light from world to world, even though not 
sufficient to disturb the gravitational nexus constituted by 
the immense aggregations of matter concentrated within 
any one world. Moreover, the pressure exerted by such 
energies as light would contribute to make the spacing 
between worlds definite by driving in the outlying fringes 
of electronic matter into the main nexus. Such outlying 
fringes would have practically no mass and therefore would 
furnish but insignificant resistance. 

It is plausible that light and other radiant energies of 
enormous velocities can escape from the gravitational field 
of any one world and thus establish communication 
between worlds, bridging the gaps of material fields. If 
they can break through the gravitational field of enormous 
stars with almost insignificant retardation and pass within 
grazing distance of stars with barely perceptible effect of 
curvature, they can escape the more attenuated fields. 
Einstein seems to think that light is curved within our 
material world, though he admits that we must wait for 
the investigation of the masses of the large fixed stars 
before we can have any adequate evidence. If his sup- 
position were correct our material universe would be blind 
to anything outside itself. This assumption, however, 
does not seem to agree with astronomical evidence. Astron- 
omy to-day inclines to the view that the star stream of 
the galactic system, of which our sun is a somewhat medi- 
ocre part, must be thought of as one of a vast number of 
independent star streams. We may picture our galactic 
system as a flattened disc, a watch-shaped aggregation of 
stars having, according to Shapley, a diameter of 300,000 
light-years and a thickness of 37,500 light-years. But the 
spiral nebule, more than a million of which, according to 
some estimates, can be photographed with the largest tele- 
scopes, should, according to recent evidence, be regarded 
as outside our galactic system. They are conceived as 
“island universes,” materially isolated in the depths of 
space, comparable in size with our galactic system; and 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 441 


with distances from us ranging from 500,000 to 10,000,000 
light years. And even our modern telescopes do not reach 
far into space. According to this conception, the lght- 
field is inclusive of various isolated material worlds. ‘The 
“island universes” are open to light; and quanta of radiant 
energy can be communicated from one material world to 
another. Space, in other words, is not bounded by our 
galactic system and our experience is not closed within 
the latter. Our material world, with its gravitational 
nexus, is not the boundary of reality. The early Greek 
naturalists, more endowed with creative imagination than 
the modern, though poorer in facts, envisaged a cosmos 
consisting of plural worlds. And modern astronomy with 
its superior technique seems to be veering towards a simi- 
lar conclusion. 


Cosmic Cycles 


The direction in which the theory of relativity points is 
that the reality which we know on the hither side, the side 
of our sense perception, as relative motions, as space-time 
perspectives with their empirical constants, must, on the 
yonder side, from the point of view of the whole, be con- 
ceived as having a definite structure—a law of equilibrium, 
determining the character of our finite perspectives. As 
we must conceive a law of curvature for the electromag- 
netic field and for the gravitational field and for the rela- 
tion between those two fundamental types, little though 
we know of this relation as yet, so we must conceive a 
cosmic curvature, a guiding field of reality as a whole with 
its complexity of fields and levels. Only thus can we 
account for its eternal movement. To know reality truly 
we must needs know the cosmic path, the law of the 
whole, of its moving equilibrium. From the point of view 
of the cosmic whole, the plural worlds are quanta deter- 
mined by the curvature of the whole. 

Besides space and energy we must take account of time, 
the passing of nature, to understand the real world. It 
has been the fashion since Parmenides and Plato to regard 


442 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the moving and relative as unreal, and to attribute reality 
only to the eternal. But it is only in movement and inter- 
action that we live at all. Rest means stagnation and 
death. It is true that the creative passing of nature can- 
not be conceived as mere chaotic chance as Heraclitus in 
one of his dark sayings intimates: “Time is a child play- 
ing drafts. The kingly power is a child’s.’ There must 
be structure as well as motion. But the real structure-must 
be the structure of a moving world. It is a structure where 
the part-motions are determined by adjustment to the 
whole. The parts are sensitive to the presence of other 
parts. They are not like the self-contained monads of 
Leibnitz. Their path is determined by interaction. It 
is a dynamic equilibrium looking backward and forward. 
The universe repeats certain themes with variations. The 
themes and their succession are controlled by the whole. 
The variations are due to the unique motions and acci- 
dents of the parts. The equilibrium, moreover, is an 
equilibrium not merely of parts, but of phases and levels. 
In the cosmos as a whole all phases and levels coexist. A 
law of compensation operates within the whole. Energy 
is not lost, but its points of concentration shift. The cos- 
mos consists of a plurality of compresent cycles, not a 
single cycle, and there is an equilibrium amongst the 
phases of these cycles controlling the redistribution and 
reorganization of energy. The ascending and descending 
phases are compensatory in the rhythm of the whole. This 
law of compensatory rhythm is illustrated in the life of 
the race. Just as in human generations, the point of maxi- 
mum life shifts from generation to generation, all the 
ages of man coexisting so long as human life is a self- 
sustaining equilibrium, so in the cosmos, which is ever 
self-sustaining, all the phases coexist, from the youngest 
nebule to dark stars which have run their span of life. 
Life ascends from childhood to youth and maturity and 
descends to old age and the grave. And the ascending 
and descending phases are compresent. If there continue 
to be children because there are parents, there continue to 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 443 


be parents because a new generation rises to take the place 
of the old. Flowers come from seeds and seeds from flowers. 
Solar systems come from nebule and nebule from solar 
systems; and there are always nebule and always solar 
systems. Reality as a whole exists equally at the top 
and at the bottom in obedience to the equilibrium of the 
whole. Worlds as they mature and die yield up their soul 
to the universe as the ripe flower sends the pollen on the 
wings of the wind. Is this poetry? Yes, but only so can 
there exist a self-sustaining reality. 

The law of compensatory rhythm must hold for all the 
types of energy and for all the levels of energy in the 
multiple histories of the cosmos. It must account for the 
waxing and waning of energies in the part-systems of the 
cosmos—such as our earth—and for the succession of 
levels in these systems. ‘T’o account for the series of levels 
in the finite histories, the cosmos must be eternally strati- 
fied in its structure. The law of dynamic equilibrium does 
not suffice to account for the compensatory rhythm unless 
we have the conception of a stratified structure of levels 
eternally coexisting in the universe. 

We can now see the cosmic signifiance of the second law 
of thermodynamics, 2.e., the constant tendency in any part- 
history for energy to flow downward from a higher to a 
lower potential—towards the level of dispersed motion. 
The downward trend—the dissipation of energy, the 
breaking down of the radioactive elements—is open to our 
observation. But what about the synthetic aspect, the 
running up process? Clerk Maxwell attacked the problem 
by postulating intelligent selection at the heart of things. 
And in some sense his insight must be right. Arrhenius 
thinks that in the interior laboratories of the bright stars, 
with their enormous heat and pressure, radioactive ele- 
ments may be regenerated from their own débris. It is 
clear that the radioactive elements must be synthesized as 
well as expended or they would not now exist. But how 
could mere heat and pressure generate atoms with just 
such patterns and identical with those of the past and 


S44 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


those now existing throughout the cosmos? If it is true 
that matter evolves, it is also true that the constitution 
of matter is eternal. The spectroscope shows that matter 
everywhere has the same patterns. The repetition of 
these patterns in space and time throughout the cosmos 
cannot be accounted for by mere chance. In some way 
the existing energy patterns must interact with matter 
in-the-making and furnish a guiding field. The synthesis 
must be determined by adjustment to the dynamic struc- 
ture of the whole with its creative genius. 

The mere conservation of energy within a closed uni- 
verse, finite or infinite, would not save the universe from 
the consequences of the second law of thermodynamics. 
It would not prevent energy from running down to a dead 
level. For this there must be a compensatory dynamic 
stratification of levels in such a way that what is running 
down in one history may be run up in another, even as 
life runs up inorganic energy to a higher level. If we 
conceive the universe as one series, whether dramatically 
created as in the first chapter of Genesis or gradually 
evolving as in the theory of modern science, it must even- 
tually run down and must be wound up again in some arti- 
ficial way if it 1s to continue to run. In order to have a 
self-sustaining cosmos it must not merely be closed, but 
there must operate within it a law of compensation. This 
is possible through the rhythmic coexistence of a hierarchy 
of levels in the cosmos as a whole. Higher levels in one 
history thus operate to control the movement of another 
history from lower to higher levels, each eventually hand- 
ing over its complexity of life to another and in turn 
going into its descending phase. The equilibrium is thus 
not only quantitative but qualitative, sustaining the coex- 
istence of levels and phases. There is no abstract, timeless 
structure existing in the pure Empyrean, beyond the move- 
ment and struggle of the world, as Plato, weary of strife, 
fain would think. The real structure is the structure of a 
world of process where the pure Euclidian limits are 
warped and distorted, and where there is the appearance 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 445 


of chance in the conflict of plural motions, as Plato so 
keenly realized. But in the moving equilibrium and under 
the control of the guiding field of the whole, the plural 
motions with their inertia, their centrifugal tendency, 
swing into place, at any rate, over long periods and con- 
tinue to swing into place. 

We must not suppose that the characteristic motion of 
the parts is abrogated in the whole. We know from 
observation and experiment that in complex systems of 
motions under the control of a guiding field, the charac- 
teristic motions of the individual components are not lost, 
though for the time being they are under the control of 
the guiding field. Thus hydrogen and oxygen, when the 
compound, water, is dissociated, resume their character- 
istic reactions. Thus in the human nervous system, if a 
lesion disconnects functionally the centres of the spinal 
cord from the upper centres, we find that the lower cen- 
tres resume their characteristic protopathic, all-or-none 
reaction, instead of reacting differentially to the locality 
and intensity of the stimulus, as they do while under the 
control of the cerebrum. Every system of energy has a 
motion of its own and offers resistance to the superimposed 
control of another system. Thus the thermal motion of 
the electrons offers inertia to magnetism and this inertia 
increases with the motion. In the complex economy of the 
human organism where we have a vast number of energy 
svstems, each level in the hierarchical control offers inertia 
to the superimposed higher levels, and though these vari- 
ous systems are held in subordination for a season within 
the control of the whole, their centrifugal tendency 
remains. This means strain and consequently the equilib- 
rium is unstable. The heart may fail while the other 
organs are still sound, but with the failure of this vital 
organ to respond to the control of the whole, the organism 
dissolves into its constituent elements with their charac- 
teristic motions. All part-systems are thus unstable and 
have a limited span. There is always the inertia of the 
component motions. When the common control dissolves, 


446 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


the constituent parts, held in leash for a period, resume 
their characteristic motions. There is only one equilib- 
rium which is absolutely stable and that is the dynamic 
equilibrium of the whole. 

Death is the price nature pays for complexity. Only 
the rhythm of the whole is eternally compensatory. In 
the equilibrium of the whole there are a variety of sys- 
tems in different stages of evolution and each as it dies 
gives up its life to the others. There can be cumulative 
orderly duration in any one history because the different 
systems give and take. Within the economy of the whole 
there is immortality, for nothing is lost, be it individuals 
or phases. If we mourn because of the conflict, pain, and 
death involved in such a moving cosmos, we should con- 
sider that only through conflict and pain was there ever 
any advance in the world which we know best. Uniform 
motion is the stagnation of values, the degeneration of 
structure and function. And when the death of dear ones 
pains us or the thought of our own little life casts its 
shadow ahead, we should find consolation in the fact that 
in the cosmic economy nothing is lost. Not only the end 
phase of a life history is conserved, but all the phases are 
conserved somehow in the yonder to share in the motion 
of the cosmos, perchance to share elsewhere in the creative 
advance of nature towards a unity higher than anything 
of which we have been able to dream. In the meantime 
it is well for us to remember that cosmic genius is condi- 
tioned in a measure by the inertia of the parts; and while 
in the long run the parts must fall into step for a season 
in the varying figures of the great cosmic dance, yet our 
individual willingness may affect the rate of movement of 
the whole, even though in an indefinitely small way. Cer- 
tain it is that it affects our individual destiny in a momen- 
tous way. 

The mechanism of the creative advance of the cosmos, 
the efficient causes by means of which this stupendous 
whole can act as a unit under the formative influence of 
cosmic genius, awaits further investigation. But within 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 447 


the small world, the human organism, we are familiar with 
two types of messengers which travel from part to part and 
which effect unity of control. We know that certain duct- 
less glands such as the thyroid, parathyroid, pituitary, and 
pineal glands transmit through the blood chemical messen- 
gers, the hormones—energy patterns by means of which 
they influence the tone, proportion, and growth of the 
organism. And there are the neural, bioelectrical messen- 
gers which seem to be formative agencies in the growth of 
the organism as well as stimuli to action. In each case 
what is transmitted is not merely energy but an energy 
pattern, potent to control the development and behaviour 
of the organism. 

But how can energy patterns be transmitted over the 
vast spaces of the cosmos? On the undulatory theory of 
transmission they must be too far spent to affect matter 
upon the earth. But here new discoveries into the relation 
of energies may help us to make the interrelation of the 
parts of the cosmos more intelligible. A definite and simple 
relation has been discovered between the waves of radiant 
energy and the movement of the electrons. Radiant energy 
can be converted into electronic motion through the agency 
of atomic matter. By acting upon atomic matter, wave 
radiation can produce electron radiation, and vice versa. 
Wave motion is defined by two qualities—the wave-length 
and the amplitude. Electron radiation also has two char- 
acteristics—number and speed. 


In what way then are the characteristics of the 
waves related to the characteristics of the electron 
movements which are excited by them? The answer 
is simple but surely unexpected. The velocity of the 
electron depends on the wave-length; the number of 
electrons depends on the intensity, but not on the 
wave-length.** 


The decrease of the intensity of the total wave would nat- 


21'The Robert Boyle lecture by Sir William Bragg, a at and 
Ether Waves,” the Scientific Monthly, Vol. XIV, p. 


448 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


urally follow from the diffusion of the quanta components 
over long distances. ‘The essential point is that wave 
radiation falling on matter of any kind whatever and in 
any physical condition, liquid, solid or gaseous, hot or 
cold, causes the ejection of electrons.” ** And the velocity 
of the electron which is started by a certain wave-length is 
the same, even though the wave has apparently spent itself 
in the length of its journey. “The effects are as if the 
energy were conveyed from place to place in entities, such 
as Newton’s old corpuscular theory of light provides.” *” 
The radiant wave somehow yields up the original quan- 
tum of energy when it acts upon matter and sends forth 
electrons. As the action of electrons determines the behav- 
liour of matter we can see how the behaviour of matter 
may be controlled at a distance. This stupendous dis- 
covery bids fair to revolutionize our conception of cosmic 
interaction. The enormous distances no longer divide in 
the sense that influences from one part of the cosmos may 
not be potent in forming the development and behaviour 
of another through the mediating agency of matter. Thus 
cosmic interaction and cosmic control at length seem a 
scientific possibility. 

In the cosmos there must be higher orders of interaction 
and adjustment than gravitational and electromagnetic, 
for we know of higher orders of interaction within our 
experience—the interaction of living things with living 
things and the interaction of minds with minds. To these 
higher orders of interaction, the lower orders become 
instrumental. They act as bearers, vehicles, conducting 
agencies: Every level of reality establishes its own con- 
tinuum over space and its response in kind wherever the 
conditions are present—the higher levels riding on the 
lower and using them as instruments in their space-time 
expression. The higher levels are more concrete than the 
lower, for they include the lower, to which they give a 
characteristic impulse and organization. This we see 
exemplified in human expression and communication. 

SaLOLie oe: 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 449 


The mental level controls the complicated physiological 
levels. It uses the complicated language mechanisms in 
the service of the meaning to be expressed, and through 
them it communicates its characteristic pattern to the 
medium. In speech the air-waves which transmit the idea 
do not constitute the pattern which they communicate. 
The whole integral situation with its unique control 
enters into the expression and communication of the mean- 
ing. The air-waves become the body which carries the 
meaning pattern to the listener. In writing, the ink and 
paper become the body, and in sculpture, the marble. But 
the meaning pattern is incarnate in the medium or it 
could not be communicated. 

Just as we speak of a thermodynamic continuum and 
an electromagnetic continuum, so we should speak of an 
intersubjective continuum. In each case the continuum 
is an interpolation to account for the end effects in space- 
time. Mind patterns are transmitted in quanta in our 
social relations, irrespective of the decrease of the intensity 
of the waves that carry these quanta. The news of mis- 
fortune or good fortune produces the same characteristic 
effect whether the voice that communicates it over the 
long distance telephone sounds faint or loud. The quality 
and potency of the news are not affected by the intensity 
of the waves that bring it. The communication in higher 
orders of interaction, as in lower, is in kind, and so is the 
response in kind wherever the proper receptor organiza- 
tion exists for receiving the impulses. Living matter has 
a quality of its own, different from inorganic matter and 
responds to the quality of living matter as it does not 
respond to inorganic matter. So minded matter has a 
quality of its own and responds to minded matter as it 
does not respond to non-minded matter. Not only do the 
energy pulses exist within a different organization and con- 
trol in organic matter from inorganic, and in minded 
matter from either of these, but the total impetus com- 
municated is different. Else how could there be a char- 
acteristic response? For the response must be to the 


450 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


impulse as communicated. When we have an exchange of 
ideas in conversation, it is not Just mechanical air-waves 
that are communicated, but the integral mind, the whole 
personality is communicated. This is true whether we are 
capable of sympathetic participation or not, though of 
course we do not perceive it or respond properly to it 
unless we are capable of sympathetic response. Not merely 
the organization of energy into material atoms, but also 
its organization into higher patterns, such as organic and 
mental patterns, must produce characteristic radiations 
which communicate the energy in kind. 

If every atom emits a characteristic energy pattern, so 
that it can be identified in the space-time of distant stars, 
we must also believe that larger and more complex organi- 
zations radiate characteristic energy patterns. We know 
that the compresence of levels in human personality is not 
merely a collection of parts, but constitutes a unique 
organization. with unity of control and with characteristic 
expression through which the personality as a whole can 
be identified in distant parts of space-time. The earth 
moves as one history under a unit control and the various 
levels that we know are integral parts of the history of 
the earth in its interaction with the cosmos. We must 
believe that impulses communicated from a cosmic his- 
tory such as the earth are integral expressions of its char- 
acter and are communicated as integral impulses to other 
parts of the cosmos. They may elsewhere be analyzed 
where the proper receptor organization exists, as we suc- 
ceed in part in analyzing the complex impulses of the 
medium in which we move. ‘The integral action of such 
impulses contributes towards constituting cosmic curva- 
ture, the space-time mould, the geodesic path of creative 
advance in the cosmos. And such interaction is effective 
in the total steering even if the parts do not have the 
organization to respond differentially to the complexity 
of the impulses—as light is effective before there are differ- 
ential organs to respond to its complexity—steering 
towards life and mind, before life and mind in a particular 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 451 


history exist, and furnishing the guiding field towards the 
development of proper organs in the trial and error adapta- 
tion of the parts. Yet the quality of a particular his- 
tory is not the mere repetition of the pattern communi- 
cated, but is the unique result of interaction of the special 
history with the impulses from the cosmos. 

The law of cosmic adjustment must be conceived as 
including all the levels of interaction and must include 
them within an integral control. The various energy 
pulses from various parts of the cosmos both enter as 
ingredients and are curved within the total control. And 
as in the microcosm of human personality the higher levels 
overlap and exercise control over the lower—selecting or 
inhibiting the impulses from the lower levels in accord- 
ance with the set of the highest level, so cosmic genius 
must exercise control of the streams of energy of various 
levels in the cosmos. But in the cosmos this selection and 
integration is eternally going on and does not lapse as in 
our limited human economy. 

But you say: Is not this eternal recurrence of cycles 
futile? What inspiration can there be in such a concep- 
tion of reality? If there is no gain in the process, is it 
worth while? If there is gain, how account for it? In 
the first place, if evolution meant exact recurrence as the 
Stoics conceived it, it would not necessarily be futile. The 
idea of indefinite progress is a comparatively recent idea; 
and if we examine it we find that it is at best a vague 
sentiment. No law of progress can be laid down. It is 
rather a wish projected out of our present feelings. The 
idea of progress grows out of our feeling of imperfection. 
The perfect does not progress. Perfection is its own 
excuse. We do not want a perfect thing to be different. 
It is only the imperfect that we want to be different. No 
one would want a perfect symphony, a perfect personality, 
altered. On the contrary, the feeling for its perfection 
constitutes a demand that it shall be eternal. “A thing 
of beauty is a joy forever.” We want it repeated as the 
satisfactory thing that it is, as expressing an idea, a phase 


452 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


of experience in a perfect way. Of course there must be 
complexity in the movement of reality. We want repeti- 
tion with variation from part to part of the symphony. 
But that does not mean that the symphony as a whole 
is not eternally complete or that there need be any apology 
for the repetition of the symphony. It is, at any rate, con- 
ceivable that there might exist a reality where all types 
exist at a maximum of perfection. Such a reality we 
should wish to imitate and own. We should not want to 
alter it. Such was indeed the Greek idea—the idea of 
Plato and Aristotle—of ultimate reality. Plato’s perfect 
pattern of beauty and goodness exists beyond the world of . 
chance and mutation. The activity of Aristotle’s God is 
circular. The Christian City of God is eternal in the 
heavens. 

But in our temporal conception of reality, it is not neces- 
sary to suppose that the recurrence of cycles means auto- 
matic repetition. In the cosmic exchange from history to 
history, whether the history of worlds, of civilizations or 
of individuals, one history appropriates the energy pat- 
terns of another by creative adaptation; and the signifi- 
cance of the pattern depends upon the history and struc- 
ture of the individual part which appropriates the pattern. 
When one world takes up the cycle of another, one group 
the civilization of another, one individual the pattern of 
another individual or group, there is not just repetition, 
but repetition with variation. This would probably be 
admitted without argument. But suppose a world with 
its constituent parts lives through a second cycle in the 
course of the cosmic year. Would this have to be mere 
repetition, as the Stoics indeed conceived it? I do not 
believe so. For, in the first place, the process of creative 
adaptation must take place through individual centres of 
energy. We have no reason to believe that such effort at 
adaptation would be just the same in successive cycles. 
Speaking in terms of human experience, we need not 
assume that individual willingness or effort is mechanically 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 488 


determined. If we might do more or less in the way of 
attending, if we might try to meet the problem differently, 
life history might be different and the ensemble of realiza- 
tion might be different. The cycle would be repetition 
with variation and its whole significance might be altered. 
The cosmic cycles then might be looked upon as creative 
experimentations to approximate the ideal order, “the pat- 
tern laid up in heaven,” to use the language of Plato. 
Success or failure might have an entirely different quality 
In various cycles. Our individual trial and error response, 
our willingness and earnestness do count in the realization 
of the group and its preparing for the future. And if there 
is a difference in the creative individual factor, then the 
cosmic cycles may be different in the concrete realization, 
whatever be the eternal themes. 

But, in the second place, there may be differences in 
the cosmic environment from cycle to cycle. The process 
of cosmic adjustment must now be conceived in terms of 
universes, each with its individual control and life but in 
- interaction with other universes. It has been suggested 
by Moulton that we must conceive the cosmos as a hier- 
archy or hierarchies of universes. At any rate, there is 
some sort of interdependence which we do not understand 
as yet. We cannot place any limit to the number of such 
universes. There may be an infinite number moving about 
in cosmic space in accordance with a law and rhythm of 
the whole. This cosmic control we know dimly in the 
higher reaches of our experience as a spiritual control. 
What if we could look at reality from the yonder side, the 
control of the whole! In the rearrangement in such a 
cosmos, there may be infinite variation in the external 
influences that bear upon the cycles of any one world. And 
realization may have to be conceived in terms of infinite 
variations on a few eternal cosmic themes with universes 
furnishing the instrumentation of the harmony. O vast- 
nesses, O sublimity! How can we pretend to grasp the 
Genius of such a cosmos. How different from a university 


454 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


professor sitting down and spinning a web of categories 
from his own consciousness as the German idealists con- 
ceived God. 

The concept of a universal law of equilibrium, of a cos- 
mic control, is a momentous one. What a stupendous 
thought thus to outrelative relativity. The grandeur of 
standing as it were even in Imagination on the very top, 
in a qualitative sense, of the cosmos—at the centre of 
exchange, of cosmic redirecting of the multiple streams 
upward and downward, of the interflashing of cosmic gen- 
ius from part to part—fills me with a dizzy rapture such as 
I have felt when I have surveyed mountains and plains » 
from some isolated granite peak, towering towards the sky. 
I must not forget, however, that it is, after all, my finite 
and relative perspective of divinity from my finite mov- 
ing frame of reference. And this should keep me humble. 
But even from our human Pisgah to try to rise above the 
passing show and to view things sub specie eternitatis, 
to envisage a cosmic path, a law of the whole, of its mov- 
ing equilibrium, fills me with an emotion of reverence, a 
sense of sublimity which passes the moral law within and 
the starry heavens above, for these, in the last analysis, 
are but finite perspectives of the cosmic order. This order 
we can but adumbrate fragmentarily in our little life. In 
the meantime we must carry on as best we can from 
moment to moment of our multiple moving world with 
its transitive and asymmetrical relations, and try through 
the ages to piece out the curvature of our bits of experi- 
ence, striving all the while to create plans for better living 
and for larger correlation of the facts of life. The finding 
of the cosmic path, the straight and narrow way that leads 
to salvation, must be one of trial and error experimenta- 
tion, of creative discovery through the ages. Salvation 
is a co-operative undertaking. Divine genius furnishes the 
impulse of higher orientation, but the finite individual 
must respond creatively to this impulse. He who fails to 
find the path, merely oscillates and beats out his life in 
vain. And oh, the tragedy of it! He who finds the way, 


RELATIVITY AND THE LAW OF THE WHOLE 455 


finds life, development, divinity. And oh, the glory of it! 
But this insight must be bought with anguish and blood. 
No advance is made without paying the price. Sometimes 
in a moment of beauty, sometimes in a fleeting mystic 
sense of unity, we may féel the order, the way, which our 
intellect is so inadequate to trace. And be the moment 
ever so brief, it will shed its radiance over a life—a radiance 
from the divine source of beauty, gentle and constructive 
in its influence, enveloping like love, creative like genius, 
tender as the soft kiss of a child. 


CHUA IP cH Rix 
FINALE 
Cosmic RELIGION 


The Awakening of Mother Earth 


Weare told in ancient story of a mighty giant who received 
fresh energy every time he touched mother earth. But 
Hercules conquered him by strangling him in the air. The 
human soul likewise receives fresh energy from contact 
with the world of concrete reality, but it has long been 
well-nigh strangled by the abstract intellect which holds 
it in the air, away from the source of our being. For we 
are children of mother earth more truly than we are chil- 
dren of our biological parents. We never leave her womb. 
We are always part of her circulation. We are sustained 
by her substance. We breathe her energy. We are old as 
she because in us are the traces, the Karma, of her entire 
past. We are young as she, for in us she opens her eyes in 
wonder to gaze upon a novel world. We are the architec- 
ture of her genius and experimentation through countless 
ages. In us she would fain lift her head above the stream 
of passing change and come to the realization of the beauty 
and meaning of the world. In us she strives to maintain 
herself at the high vantage-point of conscious self-direc- 
tion against the forces that would level all into primeval 
chaos. For ages she prepared herself unconsciously, con- 
trolled by a cosmic order which we can see only dimly 
and in retrospect, for this nobler vocation. She captured 
the necessary elements and brought them within her con- 
trol. Under cosmic guidance she stored the sunbeams in 
her recesses, she prepared the proper proportion of ele- 
ments and the proper conditions that she might in due 
456 


COSMIC RELIGION 457 


time, nurtured and fecundated by cosmic energies, give 
birth to life. With life as a magic agent she was able to 
remake herself and to carry on the experimentation for 
higher forms of life until she could mirror herself in con- 
sciousness, see the creative bent of her genius and create, 
if not more intelligently, at least more economically. After 
striving for ages to establish, first, types of physical envi- 
ronments, then types of organic structures, she has more 
lately striven to. express herself in types of ideas; and 
the survival conditions have become no longer merely 
those of brute might, but of spiritual selection—sometimes 
rank, sometimes more expressive, but working by vastly 
more economic tools and more rapid experiments than 
organic creativeness. Thus she has been able to objectify 
in us—compounded of dust and wind and sunshine—the 
futile strife and blindness of the past, and to seek a better 
way. This and much more mother earth has accomplished, 
and in this we share as her offspring. 

The human mind in its attempt to understand its world 
has invented strange dualisms and then become the victim 
of its own abstractions. In its childhood it was prone to 
ascribe a life like its own to things about it. Later it 
invented a world of doubles, a ghost world, which seemed 
to dominate the seen world. How it came to create this 
ghost world is a problem lost in the hoary past. What- 
ever its origin, the ghost conception has haunted man for 
ages and haunts us still. It is at the basis of a great deal 
of our religious and philosophic thinking. It has led to a 
strange separation between this world and the fairyland 
of imagination. It has made this world seem mechanical 
and dead, and has made us seek our values in some remote 
realm created by fancy to suit our wishes. In fervent 
mystical moods it has led to a derealizing of this world as 
at best a veil or sign of some other reality. By our abstrac- 
tion we have thus made two worlds, and separated them 
the whole distance of earth and heaven. But while our 
imagination has created another world for the values which 
we seek, we have degraded the earth more and more, little 


458 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


recking that all the while we have our roots in the soil and 
that the values which we have abstracted and transposed 
to an imaginary world of their own are the florescence of 
our own humble earth. In its creative process we must 
find God and heaven, if we find them anywhere. Both the 
materialists and the theologians talk as if soul and intelli- 
gence blew in somehow by accident into this world. They 
do not realize that human nature is the expression of 
nature; and that whatever is noble and beautiful in us is 
nature’s recreating herself in us. 

Man’s bondage to the ghosts of the past is a 1 subtle one 
and not easily broken. It is not merely the popular idea 
of doubles which are just like our bodily self, which flit 
away at death and live somewhere else in the land of ful- 
filled wishes; but the ghost idea may be magnified and 
purified into an ideal being, still like ourselves, but infi- 
nitely enlarged in power and wisdom. It may take on the 
transcendental form of personifying the universe into one 
vast inclusive ego, the fulfilled wish of its maker. This 
flatters man. In his egotistical conceit he would fain wor- 
ship himself, especially when he can do so in the guise 
of himself infinitely enlarged. But, after all, it is our 
conceit which makes us think of the supreme reality as a 
double of ourselves, even though it be our complete and 
satisfied self. We are still moving in a ghost world, even 
though it is more refined and abstract than that of our 
more honest and simple forbears. The most blighting 
ghost of all is that of materialism. For proud though the 
materialist is of his idol of mechanism, it is, after all, but 
the ghost, the double of its maker. It is but the reading 
of his mechanical habits of mind, his callousness to all 
finer values, his philistinism, in short, into the objective 
universe. In his consummate egotism the materialist 
assumes that the only order of the universe comes from 
his little brain! And where did his brain come from? But 
we cannot atomize the universe into dead abstractions 
and make a living whole out of it. And our ideals, our 
striving, our creativeness, are part of the universe even 


COSMIC RELIGION 459 


more truly than our routine and mechanism, though the 
latter have their place. 

It is a horrible tragedy that man should have accepted 
the theory of blind chance and of might as the philosophy 
of the universe. But this fits the tiger nature in man. We 
hug the illusion of self-preservation, forgetting that only 
by losing ourselves can we find ourselves. Our blindness 
and warfare are part indeed of the eternal struggle of 
forces in their externality. It is the path nature has 
travelled; but while a necessary discipline for the develop- 
ment of a hardy race, it is a wasteful process. And so 
mother earth developed the altruistic instincts—love for 
others, care for others, co-operation with others. Instead 
of the old order in which individual might prevails, it is 
an order in which the bond of love and loyalty prevails. 
And since this bond can exist only where there is fair play 
and helpfulness, it means that love and justice are more 
powerful than hate and brute might. There is an order 
in things which strives dimly and painfully for expression 
—the order of atonement. And only in this direction is 
life. We live such a little while. What a pity to waste 
this life in strife. Mother earth is caught in the net of 
struggle, in internecine competition, but what she craves 
deep in her unconscious heart, and especially when she 
awakens, is harmony, redemption from her blindness, 
union. And so she begets man. But mother earth, when she 
wakens at times to consciousness of herself in man, cannot 
be said to be altogether pleased with her offspring—man, 
the most predatory of all animals, who has robbed the 
earth of so much beautiful life to satisfy his rapacity and 
vanity, and who even preys upon his own kind. Now and 
then, however, in choice individuals the earth realizes in 
a prophetic way the longing for harmony, in the forgive- 
ness and sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth—not in a Nietzsche 
who would maintain the illusion of egoism and strife, but 
in the true saints, those who have a passion for charity 
and atonement, who give themselves, all their riches of 
heart and genius, that life may become more harmonious, 


460 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


who feel the order in the universe and strive earnestly in 
thought and deed to make it conscious and real. It is 
they who must be the leaven of a new society, if a new 
society there is to be—a fairer earth. For the meek shall 
inherit the earth. To them we must build the temples, 
not to the rapacious tiger-men whom the world deems suc- 
cessful. Worldly success is bought at such infinite cost— 
the cost of soul. There must be the spirit of sacrifice, of 
help-live—a spirit which the world cannot understand—if 
the earth is to attain to its truer life. So long as the victor 
despoils the vanquished, and the vanquished hates the 
victor, it matters not so much who is the prey or who is 
the tiger. The vicious circle goes on. We need the cour- 
age, not so much of fighting—that is easy—but of forgive- 
ness. In this direction, in the end, lies the law of economy 
as well as of happiness. No longer in division and strife 
but in union, in creative synthesis, must our salvation be 
sought. 

The dualism which has made a fairyland out of our 
ideals and left this earth dead and godless must be broken 
down. The material and spiritual are not two separate 
worlds. The spiritual is the re-creation of the material 
into new unities, wider and higher syntheses. The seem- 
ing deadness of much of our earth is due to the separation 
of forces. A material element is but energy hide-bound 
with habit, pent up for future liberation. What mighty 
stores of energy are condensed in the humblest portion 
of matter can be seen in the light and heat of radium. 
How wonderful is the solvency of life compounds! And 
what shall we say of the spiritual relations of friendship 
and love? They disclose the potency of our earth in the 
choicest and purest ways. Spirituality is the distilled, 
purified union of nature’s energies in the most complex 
relations. Materiality is but inertia, particularity, sepa- 
rateness, isolation, externality. And so a materialistic 
man is a man with few and narrow wants, self-interested, 
self-centred. The spiritual man responds to myriad tones. 
His windows are open to the light in all directions. He is 


COSMIC RELIGION 461 


social and universal in his interests. Deadness is abstrac- 
tion, separation. It is in creative union that there is life 
and spirituality. It is the striving of our mother earth 
and the universe to accomplish such union. Thus nature 
creates life as a new fact—a miracle even in its lowliest 
form. The humblest bit of lfe is infinitely superior in 
workmanship to gold and diamonds. We must learn to 
value life more and brute things less. And life is com- 
munion, not isolation. Isolation, whether in the inor- 
ganic, organic, or spiritual stage, is barren. It is in com- 
munion that there is fruitfulness. Hence we must strive 
for larger and more complex communion. In rare 
moments nature becomes conscious of this striving for 
union—in the warm kiss of love, where dust, wonderfully 
fashioned dust, meets dust and lingers in fond embrace; 
in the chaste bond of friendship; in the communion of 
saints. It is the attraction of spirit for spirit, for spirit 
is earth divinely organized and realizing its own richness. 
Not earth and spirit, but earth realizing itself as spirit 
in the creative communion of choice souls with one 
another and the Genius of the universe. It is the striving 
of nature, the push of its order, to reach spiritual creative- 
ness, to liberate itself from the limitations of next to next 
in space and time and to attain unity of life. This can 
be reached only in spiritual appreciation and communion 
—ain love, in friendship, in art. And art is but the archi- 
tect of nature working with more delicate tools, conscious 
of the drift of nature. 

If we are dust, dust looking into the eyes of dust for a 
moment in seeming separateness, only to blend soon in 
the common melting-pot again, why not make the brief 
moments as significant and beautiful as possible—bring- 
ing to life in each other the hidden resources of love and 
appreciation? Dust is beautiful in its creative synthesis— 
beautiful in the sunset, beautiful in the glory of spring, 
but most beautiful in the divine communion of human 
souls. It is then that we feel most truly the creative 
potentiality of dust, our kinship with the harmony and 


462 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


tragedy of the universe. We must learn to realize life 
in common, not ourselves, in order to live ourselves. We 
must learn to live as part of a whole if we would be 
individuals. Individuality must be precipitated and puri- 
fied in social emotion, social thought, social co-operation 
and sacrifice in order to redeem itself, even as the servant 
of Jehovah gives his life as a ransom for many. There is 
ample room for asceticism in any life worth while—the 
denial of the present for the wholeness of the future, of 
the individual for the wholeness of the group, of the group 
for the wholeness of humanity. Only through self-denial 
ean the higher values of life win fruition. Flesh has its 
claims too, but it is part of a larger whole—which flesh 
cannot see. At best life is partial in our imperfect world. 
We must strive to realize the higher partiality as against 
the lower when the two conflict, as they often do in this 
imperfect existence. But we must not forget that the end 
of life is not partiality but atonement, union, communion. 

We must turn from the ghost religion of the past, with 
its anthropomorphic background, to a more real basis, 
the basis in the evolution of our earth. We must know 
the tree by its fruits and the creative potency of nature by 
what it produces. We cannot discover the secret of life 
in the slime of the sea. We must discover it in creative 
synthesis; and the more complex synthesis is more truly 
expressive of the Genius of the whole and its incarnation 
in the finite than the simpler. ‘True religion is such a 
creative synthesis. If we had a living religion, a vital 
faith, instead of a ghost of the past, what a difference 
it would make. We repeat words, but the life, if they ever 
had life, has passed out of them. The old paradises and 
infernos have moved to limbo. It would be well to begin 
all over again. A sincere nature-worship were better than 
no worship, and thus we might liberate ourselves from the 
slavery to words. If we should worship the incarnation 
of divinity in the life of mother earth genuinely, we should 
get hold of reality, at any rate. And we might through 
her ascend to the Genius of the whole, rising from the 


COSMIC RELIGION 463 


perishing beauties of earth to the enveloping beauty and 
goodness. Yet not despising our mother. For the earth is 
our mother. We are dust of its dust. In the spring, after 
the long northern winter, the earth clothes herself in a 
garment of green grass and leaves and flowers—a garment 
of wondrous beauty. Just so, in the ages, the earth clothes 
herself with human society, with institutions and science 
and art—in short, with civilization. For we and our 
civilization are but the development of the earth’s crust 
in creative response to the forces of the universe. The 
earth is not dead. In its creative union with the cosmos 
it glows like the Holy Grail. It is mother earth that looks 
with myriad eyes at myriad stars, that produces sym- 
phonies and listens to them with myriad ears. It is 
mother earth that spins the invisible threads of human 
relations and weaves them into various patterns. It is 
mother earth that wakens in us to reflection and creative 
construction. We remain part of her throughout. It is not 
nature and man, but man the last experiment of 
nature. She holds us up in the sunlight for a moment 
and then reclaims us to her bosom. We are motes in the 
sun, walking flowers whispering joys and sorrows to each 
other, ants crawling at the bottom of the atmosphere, 
building our miniature abodes. All the while we are part 
of the earth’s control, of the law of her evolution, drawing 
our life-blood from her until our little span is complete. 
We should love mother earth, for it is but a fragment 
of her that loves in us. It is she that reveals her nature 
in the bond of love, in friendship, in all striving for truth 
and beauty. The family with its parental instinct and 
filial response is her creation. So is the bond of the com- 
munity, the bond of nationality, the striving for larger 
human unity. We fight each other in our blindness, not 
realizing that we partake in one creative essence. Oh, how 
the earth has struggled to attain this moment of living 
in us, looking at herself through us, waking in us, creating 
in us. And why should we fear death? It is but the earth 
reclaiming its own. It is but being clasped closer to her 


464 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


mother heart. Weare of her. Weare earth. I that speak 
am earth, and you that listen are earth—earth in myriad 
unique creations, but we are children of the same mother. 
If she claims us, if she undoes the work of her briet 
blossoming in us, it is because she has her race to run. 
She cannot tarry. She is impelled by a still larger des- 
tiny. Truly the virgin earth is pregnant with divinity, 
and in her travail and birth is revealed a glimpse of the 
larger life. 


The Song of Mother Earth 


If mother earth might speak through us its parts and 
organs, she might say: “It is my genius that reveals itself 
in the story of evolution. I create species. I press on to 
life in myriad individuals. Love’s sweet mystery is my 
mystery. I strive for union and atonement. The holy 
bond of friendship is my bond. I love in myriad hearts. 
Mother love is my love. The romance of youth is my 
romance. When love mourns the death of dear ones, 
it is I that mourn. I clothe myself in flowers. I fill the 
world with my fragrance and I shape organs to enjoy the 
fragrance. I love beauty and I create organs to con- 
template and create beauty. I sing in the song of birds, 
expressing my joy and anxiety, calling to my mate to 
fulfill love’s obligations that the bird song may go on. 
I am the waving corn-fields and the cattle on a thousand 
hills. Mine is the music of flowing waters, the hush at 
dawn, the low drowsy hum at eventide, mine is the 
majesty of the mountains and the tranquillity of the 
plains, the sweet fragrance of lilacs after rain, the pulsing 
days of spring-tide and the sad beauty of autumn. The 
floating clouds and the rainbow are mine. I gaze at the 
vast immensities of the starry spaces and feel humble in my 
lowliness. I gaze into my own being and am overawed 
by the dimly felt law of my own destiny. I carry the 
yesterdays in my frame, the striving and hurry of to-day, 
and the promise of the future. And I am man, to profit and 
to enjoy, to praise and to condemn. His conscience is my 


COSMIC RELIGION 465 


awakening. His sense of beauty is my harmony with 
myself and the universe. I created his sense organs and 
his mind, in unconsciousness, not knowing my own genius, 
that I might enjoy sunset and evening star. 

“But I am more than myself. My genius is but the 
expression of the Genius of the cosmos. I am sun-dust, 
part of the energy of the sun, evolved from the same 
nebula, life of its hfe. It is the sun which impregnates 
me in his shower of golden light. JI was incubated by his 
energies in the vast ages. I am held safely in his embrac- 
ing arms in my perilous journey among the stars. I grow 
and develop because of the nurturing energy of the sun. 
Therefore I thank and praise the benignant author of life 
and beauty. But the sun too is star-dust, part of the 
drift of the cosmos, part of the starry heaven that inspires 
me with its sublimity. And I am akin to these larger 
energies. The history of cosmic dust lives in me. I have 
been present in the rise and decadence of worlds, in the 
everlasting harmony and tragedy of the spheres. When 
the glorious father sun is a burned-out cinder, moving 
sightless in the dark spaces, waiting to be recharged with 
new energy, I shall follow him somehow in his death and 
resurrection. I am not self-sufficient. I am part of the 
larger destiny. I live only as a part of the rhythm of a 
still larger order. J have my flowering period, and then 
I too must die, at least for a season. In my conscious 
moments I sometimes mourn my death, for I too would 
fain live. But I submit in confidence to the larger Provi- 
dence. I am the vessel of the great Potter. I am more, 
Iam His child. I am the work of the Genius of the whole 
expressing Himself in every part. And He loves me with 
an infinite love, of which the love I show is but a frag- 
ment. To this love I trust myself and mine, as I travel 
the unknown spaces in the infinite flight of the eons. 

“My soul is at peace at length, and my restless, throb- 
bing heart aches no more, for in the cycles of change I 
have caught the music of the whole. I shall sing my 
song to the harmony of the whole, to the overarching 


466 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


and all-pervasive cosmic Genius which furnishes the goal 
of my striving and the field within which I move, though 
sometimes tardily and in parts perversely. Of myself I 
am a barren virgin, but I share in the life of all the worlds; 
and, lowly though I am, I am yet the bride of the Highest. 
Through the Divinity that envelopes me, I shall conceive, 
in the fulness of time, yet greater and nobler soul. I 
shall bring my gift to the whole, to the immensities where 
stars are lit and fade in the depths of space as a candle 
burns out in the night, though not without lighting new 
worlds in the reciprocal exchange of the whole. Every 
part, however humble and however great, lives its life 
within the guidance of the whole and is fructified by the 
Spirit of the whole. May I become attuned to respond 
to this creative Spirit with still nobler gifts. This shall 
be my prayer and my religion—feeling what I cannot see 
and reaching forward to what I cannot comprehend—as I 
wait In pious preparation for the new incarnation of 
Divinity.” 
The Aspiration to Divinity 


We do not understand, but somehow we are part of 
a creative destiny, reaching backward and forward to 
infinity—a destiny that reveals itself, though dimly, in 
our striving, in our love, our thought, our appreciation. 
We are the fruition of a process that stretches back to star- 
dust. We are material in the hands of the Genius of the 
universe for a still larger destiny that we cannot see 
in the everlasting rhythm of worlds. Nothing happens 
but what somehow counts in the creative architecture of 
things. We fail and fall by the way, yet redeeming grace 
fashions us anew and eliminates our failures in the larger 
pattern. The pangs of pain, of failure, in this mortal lot, 
are the birth-throes of transition to better things. We 
are separated for a time by the indifference of space and 
by our blindness which particularizes and isolates us. But 
in us is the longing for unity. We are impelled by a hid- 
den instinct to reunion with the parts of the larger heart 


COSMIC RELIGION 467 


of the universe. We are hurrying to the consummation 
of the drama—tragedy, because we cannot see beyond 
our failures; comedy, when our little systems are revealed 
in a new and wider plot which in turn is but a curtain- 
raiser to a new drama. 

This is not a religion of nature in the sense of levelling 
all to the less-developed stages of nature—brute and mat- 
ter. It is in the upper creative reaches that the meaning 
and goal of the universe, the genius of divine creativeness, 
is foreshadowed. When the earth becomes conscious in 
us of its order and law, of the cosmic trend, there is much 
to criticize, much to eliminate from the jungle of life 
and the elements as they are thrown together by the sea 
drift. We cannot worship the whole of things as a mere 
collection. We must discern and feel the Genius of the 
whole. There must be ideal direction and synthesis. And 
so we have art and morality and religion—earth’s noblest 
creations. We must eliminate sin which is isolation, 
blindness to the larger whole. We must select in our 
appreciation, our striving. And so we worship the finite. 
Not all is good or beautiful, at least to usward. 

Realism and idealism both have their place. Idealism 
is the flowering of the pain and stress of life. It is the 
compensation for our sense of failure. To us the com- 
pleter union is something beyond, in the creative bosom of 
the future. We must build our air-castles to keep the 
spirit of effort and hope alive. There is ever the beckon- 
ing of the unknown, the spires rising heavenward out 
of the tragedy of the soul. The mistake of idealism has 
been that it has erected an artificial heaven of values, 
apart from this world, while it has made this world sordid 
and mean. Hence the eternal hiatus, the failure to bring 
the two worlds together, and the consequent tragedy of 
life. So we must have realism to balance our idealism. 
We must learn that the true air-castles of the spirit, of 
our nobler striving, are the manifestation of nature, the 
adumbration of its meaning, produced by the cosmos even 
as the sunset and the rainbow—not something apart from 


468 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


it. They are the artesian pressure of the Genius of the 
whole in human nature, behind even as before, seeking 
realization in the finite process and in finite centres. 
Mourn not because the moments of this constellation of 
dust are brief. Say not that it is all in vain because we 
must die and the earth too must die, for some eons at 
least until she is resurrected again from her slumber in 
the larger Providence of the universe. Flowers too have 
a brief time to bloom. Is it in vain that flowers bloom, 
because they must die? We were not brought here in 
vain. The Genius of the universe will see to it that 
nothing perishes which has permanent worth. And to 
stand for a moment on Pisgah, to see and feel the beauty 
of the world, is this not worth while? 

There is in us the impulse for immortality. There is 
the consciousness of the unfinished task, of the larger 
creative destiny. We cannot see our place in the infinite 
future. But we must work in faith for the promise. We 
must have faith that the creative Providence which has 
led us hitherto with infinite care and pain is not playing 
an idle game, cannot be permanently defeated in its 
striving. We do not know our place in the structure of 
the whole, but we must pray and have confidence that 
what is best shall come to pass. A great deal of our hope 
for immortality has had its roots in our vanity and ego- 
tism. We have built our future upon our pride in per- 
sonality, our pride in class and race. We have erected 
false distinctions of values. We create the gulf of separa- 
tion between the sinner and the saint. We erect our 
measure of value, based upon our limitations, and expect 
the universe to respect it. We egotistically pride ourselves 
on our saintliness or welter in our sins, forgetting that in 
the struggle for life it is often our self-satisfied saints who 
make sinners out of the rest. But we are all miserable 
sinners and potential saints—imperfect beings, half-men. 
Man in his vanity personifies what seems to him good and 
calls it God. And in lke manner he personifies what 
seems to him evil and calls it devil. He completes his 


COSMIC RELIGION 469 


wishes in imagination and calls the result heaven. He 
objectifies his pain and frustration and calls the result 
hell. But our measure of values is relative to our igno- 
rance and imperfection. In the democracy of dust, sinner 
and saint lie down together—the sinner often more sinned 
against than sinning, the true saint more conscious of 
failure than consummation. But mother earth heals the 
scars and starts the experiment anew. The real measure 
of achievement in this life is the capacity for forgiveness. 
Salvation is an infinite process. And we shall share in this 
process constructively in the measure that we share in the 
infinite love. It is not for us, creatures of a moment, to 
prejudge the outcome of an infinite experiment, but it is 
for us to help as we may in the process of atonement. If 
we so do, our errors and conceits, our blindness of race, 
our false centrism of self and group shall be purified as 
by fire. We shall discover our real kinship in the life of 
the whole. 

In the flux of human opinion, the fundamental values 
of life change but little. Our ancestors thought in ghost 
terms, we think in cosmic terms, but the Sermon on the 
Mount remains. Dante’s world has vanished in the light 
of human knowledge, we must find a new home for the 
values he strove to express. But in the new setting the 
fundamental values remain, even as a diamond may be 
set in gold or platinum. They become only more real to 
us when we can see them as a part of a cosmic Providence. 
The forms change, but the substance, the meaning, the 
drift remains, though deriving new significance when seen 
in a new setting. Future generations must again formu- 
late the meaning of life in their own way. It holds 
throughout that the new wine must have new bottles. 
Some people mourn over their outworn creeds and their 
defunct institutions as Jonah mourned over his gourd. 
They forget that redemption is the important thing—the 
seizing upon the divine life in the process of the ages 
and creating new forms for it, more germane and satisfy- 
ing to the human spirit. 


470 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


We need a religion that we can use in our complex life. 
The cry for salvation was never deeper than in a society 
which has lost touch with the past but failed to discover 
the future. We are nervous, and fret our lives away. 
We are tired and haggard, with taut nerves and drawn 
faces, old before our time. We need a religion that shall 
quiet our nerves and calm our spirit in order that we may 
draw fresh strength from the infinite reservoir of energy. 
We are absorbed in ourselves and in our harrow group 
interests, and miss the refreshment of companionship. 
We need atonement, a larger sympathy with man and 
the universe. We are young and ambitious, but know 
not the way. We need new insight and faith to reorganize 
a shattered society. We love—and fear lest the dream 
prove a nightmare. In all the conditions of life we need 
a new rapport with the redeeming love of the universe. 
We need communion with the larger life, the security of 
the everlasting, the hope of the ever-creative; we need the 
love that links men together in deeper co-operation and 
appreciation. We need a religion that enables us to live 
and not merely to get; or our doing and fretting are 
in vain. We need the consciousness of the creative Spirit 
of the ages. 

Jesus remains for us the choicest incarnation of cosmic 
genius in the warm flesh of mother earth. His significance 
does not depend upon an outworn ghost conception of the 
world, which, on the contrary, has too often hardened 
men’s hearts against his real spirit. That spirit is one 
of union, atonement, creativeness. Wherever it becomes 
active, it dissolves age-long distinctions between men and 
makes them into a community, it establishes a new rap- 
port with the universe. It is a spirit of renunciation of 
our harrow centrism that the larger creative life may be 
realized, of renunciation of our paltry immediate interests 
that a larger future, a better humanity, a better earth may 
be created. It means the creative incarnation of divinity, 
not merely in individuals, but in society, in social indi- 
viduals—in the small intimate unities and in the ever 


COSMIC RELIGION 471 


larger enveloping unities—though this incarnation must 
necessarily come in despised minorities through which the 
higher light must break, whether in church or industry. 
It makes for creative wholeness of life, as broad as 
humanity, yea as expansive as the cosmos. 

We presumptuously make definitions of God as though 
He were a creature of dictionaries, as though His essence 
could be packed away into snug little formulas of our own 
making. We have too long insisted on making God in 
our own likeness, a magnified ghost of our own ego. God 
is too vast for our limited imagination, too rich for our 
abstract thought. His is the creative genius of the ages— 
the genius of an infinite cosmos. How can we presume 
to fathom Him? But we feel that His essence is incarnate 
somehow, however imperfectly, in all holy bonds, in all 
sincere loyalty to the best, in all regeneration toward a 
higher and more perfect order. If we are true to our 
noblest insight, if we strive creatively for larger unity, 
we shall in a measure live Him even if we cannot under- 
stand Him. “Live in me, create in me,” says the larger 
life. ‘TI am the true vine, ye are the branches. Without 
me, ye can do nothing. Co-operate in free and loyal 
creativeness for the whole, and the universe is yours.” 

The vision of reality which rises before my imagina- 
tion is not the well-defined finite model of a Greek temple 
with its sharp geometric outlines and its self-contained 
beauty. Rather there rises the vision of a Gothic 
cathedral with its arches and spires pointing and guiding 
heavenward—towards the Beyond, the unattained, the 
inspiration and fulfillment of our striving, incarnate in 
the pulsating life of humanity, yet transcending our mun- 
dane experience, surpassing our telescopes and our imagi- 
nation, sublime yet tender in its encompassing majesty. 
The controlling genius of such a cosmos cannot be defined 
in the image of man, even the mind of man. Much less 
can such a reality be expressed in the infra-human levels 
of mechanical causation which is “machinery just meant” 
for a higher realization. We must look for the nature of 


472 COSMIC EVOLUTION 


cosmic genius above and not below man, though pervading 
and working through all the levels of matter, life and 
mind. Its presence comes to us as an unsatisfied longing— 
more to be prized than attainment—as an intuition of a 
reality which we can only dimly grasp and still less 
describe, as a love which outreaches knowledge, as a peace 
which passes understanding. 

In the stillness of the night I had a dream, and in my 
dream a spirit radiant with an unearthly light stood over 
me. And the spirit said: “Thou shalt pass light.” I 
answered in amazement: “How can I pass light? Nothing 
can pass light.” But the spirit affirmed with emphasis 
like thunder: “Thou must leave light behind. The light 
must shine upon your back.” I awoke in perplexity and 
wonder, and I recorded the strange dream. For I could 
not understand and my soul was filled with misgiving 
and anxiety. But as I meditated on the spirit’s words, 
the meaning began to dawn upon my soul. The spirit 
was speaking of human life with its finite perspective. I 
must pass the light that now is, the light of man’s experi- 
ence, and this light must shine upon my back, while I 
move in faith, guided by a destiny through which “I am 
more than I am and know more than I know,” into the 
darkness which I call future, towards a goal which I cannot 
see. And I must pass the idea of god that man has 
created in his effort to grasp the universe and to find 
salvation—the god of man’s philosophy, yea the god of my 
imagination. And I must move on toward the Beyond 
which eye hath not seen nor ear heard and which has not 
entered into the thought of man—the transcendent, yet — 
pervasive and guiding harmony which passes infinitely 
what man conceives as beauty, truth, and goodness. 


INDEX 


is sf ip ae 


ny 





INDEX 


Abelard, 329. 

Absolute, concept of the, 90-91, 
275 ff., 364. 

Acceleration, law of, 28. 

Action, reaction, and interaction, 23, 
20. 

Actuality prior to potentiality, 78. 

Adaptation, 28, 29, 57-58, 69-70, 91 ff.; 
creative, 49, 72-73, 91 ff., 123, 192, 
202, 240; trial and error process of, 
21, 31, 69, 70, 72, 74, 92, 93, 94, 
98, 136, 146, 165, 431; social con- 
cept of, 202 ff.; moral, 264. 

Adjustment, cosmic, 448-451. 

Alexander, 8., 9; space-time concepts 
of, 86-90; Space, Time and Deity, 
quoted, 86, 88, 89, 176-177, 364, 
365, 387. 

Alpha rays, 107. 

Ancestral repetition, law of, 26. 

Appalachian upheaval, 64. 

Aquinas, Thomas, 177, 178, 188, 253, 
271, 329; Contra Gentiles, quoted, 
176. 

Aristotle, 24, 24 n., 177, 178, 188, 
230, 240, 253, 271, 329, 452; theory 
of evolution, 77 ff.; Metaphysics, 
quoted, 77, 78-79, 80. 

Arrhenius, 30, 448. 

Aspects, 378-381. 

Astronomy, theory of star stream 
in modern, 440-441. 

Atoms, 84, 103-106, 308-309, 
327-328, 329. 

Atonement, the new order, 459, 470. 

Averroes, 253. 


312, 


Bacon, Francis, 229. 

Bagehot, 226, 411. 

Bateson, 59. 

Beauty, development of sense of, 102. 

Behaviour, 158, 162, 165, 166, 170, 
171, 172, 261, 373; individual, 161; 


interrelation of mental and phys- 
ical control of, 198-200. 

Behaviourism, concept of, 215-216. 

Bentham, 194. 

Bergson, Henri, 27, 61, 235, 238, 403; 
contraction theory of, 138-140; 
Matter and Memory, quoted,. 138- 
140, 186-187; Creative Evolution, 
cited, 253. 

Berkeley, 331, 349, 400. 

Bifurcations. See Reality. 

Birds, evolution of, 64. 

Blood, effect of, on psychological sit- 
uation, 61-63. 

Body, evolutionary concept of mind 
and, 178-192. 

Bohr, 308. 

Boodin, J. E., Truth and Realty, 
29n.; A Realistic Universe, 29 n., 
392, 402n.; Social Minds, 206n.; 
Time and Reality, 402 n. 

Bosanquet, B., 398. 

Bragg, Sir William, “Electrons and 
Ether Waves,” 120n., quoted, 447- 
448. 

Broad, C. E., Perception, Physics 
and Reality, cited, 347 n. 

Brownian movement, 108, 403. 

Bruno, 254. 


Calculus, 309, 316, 322. 

Cannon, Walter B., Bodily Changes 
in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage, 
cited and quoted, 158. 

Carr, H. Wildon, 188; A Theory of 
Monads, cited, 253; The Philos- 
ophy of Benedotto Croce, cited, 
420. 

Cartesian concept of dualism, 181, 
183, 188, 191, 217. 

Cascadian upheaval, 64-65. 

Cenozoic era, 64. 


Chamberlin, T. C., 9. 


475 


476 


Chance, incredibility of, 18, 20, 22, 
24, 28, 49, 57, 74, 91, 124, 126, 469. 

Chaos, 109. 

Chemical messengers, 24, 26, 29, 36, 
ba vOL. ‘ 

Chromatin, 25, 26, 28, 29. 

Civilization, tendencies in modern, 
167. 

Clifford, W. K., 363. 

Coal, 65, 109. 

Colour, 140; sense of, 344-346; per- 
spectives of, 366. 

Compensation, law of, 28-29. 

Conduct, relation of, to behaviour, 
158. 

Conklin, E. G., Heredity and En- 
vironment, quoted, 51-52, 54-55, 
62, 63. 

Consciousness, 364, 386 ff. 

Constancy, variation and, 21, 63. 

Continuity, 26, 27. 

Continuum, theory of, 32, 37, 309, 
310, 449. 

Contraction, Fitzgerald theory of, 
277-278. 

Control. See Cosmic control. 

Co-operation, need for social, 208- 
209; effect of mental perspective 
on, 374-375. 

Copernican theory, 275, 276, 279, 
280, 289. 

Cortex, Epicritic system in the cere- 
bral, 142, 144, 147-148, 151-154, 
159-160, 167, 172. 

Cosmic adjustment, 424 ff.; law of, 
448-451. 

Cosmic continuum, levels in, 32-33. 

Cosmic control, 37, 49-50, 66, 93, 
109-110, 128-129, 168-169, 192, 211, 
267-268, 270, 324-325, 399-400. 

Cosmic evolution, human nature 
and, 135. 

Cosmic interaction, 111. 

Cosmic levels and interaction, 29 ff. 

Cosmic medium, geometric qualities 
of, 427-428. 

Cosmic space, 482 ff. 

Cosmology, forms of, 83. 

Cosmos, perpetual motion in the, 
18; space-time equilibrium in the, 
114; dynamic equilibrium in the, 


COSMIC EVOLUTION 


114-117; mind in the, 260-265; 
God in the, 265-272, 465. 
Creation, the new story of, 7. 
Creative imagination, see Imagina- 
tion. 
Croce, B., 419, 420. 
Cycles, cosmic, 441 ff.; concept of 
eternal recurrence of, 451-454. 


Dalton, 308, 309. 

Darwin, Charles, cited, 24, 56, 57, 59, 
60, 77, 113, 124, 153, 184; principle 
of natural selection, see Selection. 

Davenport, Charles B., quoted on 
science of genetics, 56n. 

Death, concept of, 446. 

Defectives, mental, 198-199. 

Democritus, 308, 432. 

Descartes, René, concepts of, 179, 
180, 181, 188, 184, 188, 190, 191, 
217, 277, 280, 287, 348. 

Determination, in nature, 425, 429; 
law of, 426-427. 

Dewey, John, 222, 225; Dewey and 
Tufts’s Ethics, cited, 223; Human 
Nature and Conduct, quoted, 226- 
227; How We Think, quoted, 229- 
230. 

Divinity, manifestations of a, 33-35; 
creative adaptation and, 123; as- 
piration to, 466-472. 

Diversity, 18-19, 42. 

Dualisms, ghosts of, 457. 

Driesch, cited, 54. 

Ductless glands, 168. 

Duration, concept of, 318-323. 

Earth, complex impulses in, 36-37; 
effect of crust on life forms, 64- 
66; periodicities of crust, 66; mo- 
‘tion of the, 95; geological history 
of the, 101; transformations in 
history of, 102; orbital motion of, 
276-278; creatriz, 456 ff. 


Eddington, A. S., cited, 107, 287, 
289, 290, 292, 308; “The Theory 
of Relativity and Its Influence on 
Scientific Thought,” quoted, 278; 
The Mathematical Theory of 
Relativity, quoted, 429, 430. 

Education, importance of, as social 
influence, 53. 


INDEX 


Einstein, A., 87, 191, 305, 306, 307, 
309, 315, 316, 322, 323, 347, 394, 
402, 403, 404, 407, 419, 424, 428, 
432, 433, 484, 440; theory of rela- 
tivity, 279-302, 341; Sidelights on 
Relativity, quoted, 315, 424-425, 
434, 435, 488, 439; The Meaning 
of Relativity, quoted, 294, 296, 
297, 428, 429, 437. 

Einstein-Lorentz formula, 323. 

Elan vital, 23-24, 27. 

Electricity, positive and negative, 
106. 

Electromagnetic field, 438-441. 

Electrons, 84, 103-106, 191, 211, 288, 
303, 310, 311, 312; space-time con- 
cept of, 430. 

Electro-vital messengers, 54. 

Elements, significance of order in, 
19-20; periodic law of, 20, 84, 104, 
110, 124; properties of, 21-22; 
structural hierarchy of, 106-108. 

Emergence, theory of, 82, 85, 128- 
129. 

Emotion, James-Lange theory of, 
174; relation of entire organism 
to, 174-175. 

Emotions, conduct of, 158-159. 

Energy, 428-429; levels of, 41; or- 
ganization of, 68, 69; diffusion of, 
108-109; concepts of, 114, 288; 
relation of consciousness to, 394; 
law of compensatory rhythm for, 
443; synthetic aspects of, 443. 

Energy communication, 120-121. 

Energy exchange, 69, 98, 210; cos- 
MiGoa toile 

Energy fields, 192. 

Energy patterns, 31, 36-37, 42, 45, 70, 
72, 118-120, 150, 158, 164, 165, 
447-451. 

Energy rays, 37. 

Energy waves, theory of, 37. 

Energy systems, 21, 31, 53-55, 232, 
382-384. 

Entelechy, disproof of, 23. 

Entities, 384-385. 

Environment, 25, 29, 50ff., 70, 204- 
205; relation between emotion 
and, 174-175; relation between 
mind and, 192; meaningful reac- 


477 


tion to, 232-234; conditions of re- 
sponse to, 255. 

Epicritic system, the, 143. 

Epigenesis, evolution and, 96-98. 

Equilibrium, 20, 53, 55, 64, 67, 68, 
426, 441; space-time, in the cos- 
mos, 114; dynamic, 114-117; con- 
cept of universal law of, 454-455. 

Error, 378-379. 

Ether, Michelson experiment with, 
276-279. 

Ether-space, Einstein quoted on, 
433-434, 4385, 486, 437. 

Kuclidian theory, 279, 294, 298, 300, 
304, 314, 321, 434. 

Evil, problem of, 44-46, 445, 467. 

Evolution, “freedom” of, 21; proc- 
ess of, 22-23; causes of, 22-26, 
67 ff.; law in, 24; sequences of, 
26-29; order through causes, 28- 
29; factors necessary to, 29-30; 
relation of rhythm to, 40-41; spi- 
ral aspect of, 44; geological per- 
spective of, 63 ff., 95; recognition 
of, as unit, 66; Aristotle’s concept 
of, 77-82; modern concept of, 82- 
83; pan-psychist and vitalist con- 
cept, 83; concept of events as as- 
pects of the whole, 83-91; concept 
of cosmic interaction in, 91 ff.; 
importance of matter to, 94-95; 
geological, 95-96; preformism and 
epigenesis reconciled with, 96-98; 
coexistent levels in cosmic, 98- 
103; social, 98-100; matter and, 
103-111, 125; cosmic levels and, 
111-113; energy exchange in, 113- 
123; materialism and, 123-124; 
cosmic control in, 124-125; ideal- 
ism and, 126-128; cosmic interac- 
tion and, 128-129; concept of God 
in, 129-131; mind-body concept 
of, 178-192; Darwinian theory of, 
184; the social milieu and, 200- 
204; animal, 239. 

Extension, concept of, 318, 327, 343. 

Eye experiments, Guyer and Smith, 
62. 


Facts, concept of, 331. 
Fauna, changes in, 66. 


478 


Fawcett, Douglas, 90. 

Fechner, 182, 308. 

Fertilization, factors in, 54-56. 

Final causes, claims of, 128-129. 

Fitzgerald, contraction theory, 277- 
278, 279, 288. 

Fizeau, 276. 

Flora, changes in, 66. 

Foucault’s pendulum, 280, 293. 

Fouillé, cited, 149. 

Frames of reference, 279 ff. 

Freedom, concept of, 268. 

Functions, interrelation of, 232 ff. 


Galileo, 275, 413. 

Galton, 150, 415. 

Gates, R. R., cited, 57 n. 

Gauss, geometrical concept of, 296- 
297, 299, 300, 301, 395, 410. 

Genius, creative, 33, 99-100. 

Geometry, theories of, 296-301, 309. 

Germ cells, cause of constancy in, 
63. 

Germ chromatin, 25, 29. 

Germ-plasm, relation of, to organ- 
ism, 61-62. 

Geulinex, 180. 

Gibbs, Willard, cited, 21, 22, 363. 

Glands, reproductive, 26; ductless, 
168. 

Gladstone, 415. 

God, concept of, 80, 89, 123, 125, 
129-131, 180, 181, 265-272, 268-270, 
471-472. 

Gold, a relative standard, 301-302. 


Gomperz, T., Greek Thinkers, cited, 


24n. 

Grand Canyon, 64. 

Gravitation, 428; Einstein’s theory 
of relativity and, 286-287. 

Group-unity, 164. 

Guyer and Smith, experiments by, 
62. 


Habit, 92, 102, 238. 

Haeckel, cited, 136. 

Haldane, Lord, The Reign of Rela- 
tivity, 385 n. 

Head, Dr. Henry, 137, 142, 147, 153, 
349, 353; “Sensation and the Cere- 
bral Cortex,” cited, 142-144; 148 n. 


COSMIC EVOLUTION 


Hegel, 90, 226, 338, 385, 403, 419, 
420. 

Henderson, Lawrence J., 25, The 
Order of Nature, quoted, 19, 20- 
21, 22; The Fitness of the En- 
vironment, quoted, 20. 

Heraclitus, 17, 130, 406, 424, 442. 

Heredity, germ of, 26; environment 
and, 50ff.; variation and con- 
stancy in, 63. 

Heyl, Paul R., “The Master Key,” 
quoted, 65-66, 312-313. 

History, space-time perspective and, 
401-402; structural concept of, 
404-406; human, 406-408; group, 
408-419; complex characteristics 
of, 419-422. 

Hoernle, R. F. A., Studies in Con- 
temporary Metaphysics, cited, 
380. 

Hole BV Bue The 
cited, 86, 86n. 

Homo samens, rise of, 64. 

Hume, 210, 212, 214, 217, 329, 330. 

Huxley, 181; “Animal Automatism,” 
cited, 239. 

Hydrodynamics, 310-311. 


New Realism, 


Idealism, cosmic, and empirical re- 
alism, 7, 8; psychological, 127 f. 

Illusion, 378-379. 

Imagery, concept of, 147-154. 

Imagination, creative, 160-161. 

Immortality, 270-272, 421, 422, 468. 

Individual, social behaviour of the, 
166; cosmic control of the, 168- 
169; environment and the, 192; 
social instincts of the, 194-196; in- 
tellectual capacities of the, 196- 
198; behaviour of the, 198-200; 
society and the, 200-204; social 
milieu of the environment and, 
204-209; unique character of the, 
258-259; relation of, to the whole, 
259; the soul of the, 259-260. 

Inertia, concept of, 191, 288, 428, 
437. 

Inge, W. R., The Idea of Progress, 
quoted, 30; cited, 127 n. 

Inheritance, 62-63. 

Instinct, conduct of, 158; prenatal, 


INDEX 


193-194; development of social, 
194-195; concept of, 195-196; re- 
productive, 237, 238. 
Instrumentalism, the 
227-228. 
Intelligence, levels of, 18; 
of, 196-198; 
tive, 229-231. 
Interaction, 29 ff.; effects of, on or- 
ganic development, 35-36; social 
and mental, 37; spiritual, 38; rela- 
tivity in, 42-43; variations and, 
57; concept of cosmic, 91-98, 257- 
258: adaptive, 348; higher ar 
of, in cosmos, 448- 449. 
Tnsareubiective continuum, 449. 
Island universes, concept of, 439-440. 
Isotopes, 105 n. 


mind and, 


concept 
tests of, 197; crea- 


James, William, 158, 161, 222, 227, 
330, 3381; The Principles of Psy- 
chology, cited, 221n.; The Var- 
eties of Religious Experience, 
quoted, 227; The Letters of Wil- 
liam James, quoted, 330. 

James-Lange theory of emotion, 
cited, 174. 

Jesus of Nazareth, 459, 470. 

Joly, cited, 65-66. 


Kant, 21, 88, 214, 229, 255, 292, 329. 

Kellogg, Vernon L., “Heredity and 
Environment,” quoted, 52; Mind 
and Heredity, quoted, 168. 

Kiilpe, O., Outlines of Psychology, 
eited, 151 n. 


Laird, J.. A Study 
quoted, 335, 339. 
Lalande, A., La Dissolution, cited, 
404. 

Lamarckian concept, cited, 56. 

Language, relation of, to human 
perspectives, 373-374. 

Language mechanisms, 92, 102, 160, 
165, 239. 

Laramide level, the, 64. 

Laski, Harold J., The Problem of 
Sovereignty, quoted, 258. 

Law, existence of, in evolution, 24. 


in Realism, 


479 

Leibnitz, G. W., 124, 138, 182, 252, 
254, 259, 304, 307, 365, 366, 370, 
372. 

Lengths, Einstein’s concept of, 424- 
425. 

Leucippus, 46, 47, 49, 85, 101, 191, 
308, 329, 432. 

Levels, 18, 22; cosmic, 29ff., 109; 
cultural, 31, 32; control by higher, 
33, 43, 78, 98-99, 266-268; coexist- 
ent, 36, 39, 41-42, 79, 98 ff.; hier- 
archy of, 43-44, 100, 101, 125, 267; 
pre-existence of, 78; cosmic inter- 
action between, 111-113; intensity 
Otel ot 

Lewis, G. N., quoted, 310, 314, 315. 

Life, theory of evolution of, 22-25; 
fundamental law of, 25; effect of 
earth’s crust on, 66; relation of, 
to geological and cosmic environ- 
ment, 67-68; system of controls 
in, 170-171. 

Life compounds, 84. 

Life cycle, equilibrium necessary to 
development of, 50-56. 

Life environment, 25, 29. 

Life forms, 24, 64-65, 66-67. 

Life-giving patterns, 30. 

Life levels, 18. 

Life patterns, 34-35. 

Life stream, development of, 51 ff. 

Light, 295, 296, 311, 315, 323; curv- 
ature of, 42, 114; experiments 
with, 276, 281, 282; theory of, 293; 
perspectives of, 366. 

Light patterns, 28, 30, 31, 71-72. 

Light-waves, 344-346. 

Lillie, Ralph S., “Growth in Living 
and Non-living Systems,” quoted, 
117-118, 119. 

“Local space,” 279. 

Lorentz, contraction theory of, 277- 
278, 282, 283, 288; transformation 
formule of, 279; ether theory of, 
434. 

Lotze, R. H., Metaphysics, quoted, 
391. 

Lovejoy, A. O., cited, 221 n. 

Lucretius, quoted, 328-329. 

Lull, G. S., “The Pulse of Life,” 
quoted, 65. 


480 


Mach, 315," 428, 437. 

Macrocosm and microcosm, relation 
between the, 254-255. 

Malebranche, 180. 

Mammals, evolution of, 64. 

Man, steps in creative evolution of, 
49-50; complex system of energies 
in, 117-119; evolution of, 135; re- 
lation of, to cosmos, 262-263; per- 
spectives of, 373-374. 

Mass, concept of, 288, gravitational 
and kinetic, 428-429. 

Materialism, 47-49, 123 ff.; science 
and 261; idol of, 458. . 

Mathematics, Reality and, 307 ff.; 
new theory of, 309-311; challenge 
of method of, 316. 

Matter, réle of, 33, 94, 125-126; evo- 
lution of, 103ff.; organization, 
structure, and elements of, 103- 
109; cosmic control of, 109-111; 
energy patterns in, 119-120; radia- 
tion of energy in, 120-121; beha- 
viour of, 124; concept of claim to 
reality, 128; control of mind over, 
190; cosmic interaction and, 257- 
258; indispensable to spiritual 
evolution, 266; theory of, 308. 

Matthews, W. R., 119. 

Maxwell, 39, 278, 311, 443. 
McDougall, 158; An Introduction 
to Social Psychology, cited, 31. 

Meditation, gift of, 259-260. 

Memory, 92, 102, 197, 238-239, 320. 

Mendeleef, 104. 

Mendelism, 58-60. 

Mental patterns, 163, 165-166. 

Mesozoic era, 64. 

Metaphysics, concept of, 314. 

Meyerson, Emile, 340. 

Michelson and Morley experiment, 
the, 275, 276-278, 279, 282, 284, 
285, 287, 290, 293, 307. 

Mill, John Stuart, quoted, 263. 

Millikan, R. A., 308, 309, 413-414. 

Mind, an energy system, 21; dura- 
tion and order of processes of, 
43; concepts of, 88, 128, 161-166, 
211-221, 240-241, 242, 397; system 
of controls in, 171 ff.; integral re- 
lation of, to the human organism 


COSMIC EVOLUTION 


and environment, 172 ff.; organic 
functioning of, 176; heredity and, 
177-178; evolutionary concept of, 
178-192; relation between envi- 
ronment and, 192; milieu of, 
200; nature of, 210-231; trans- 
cendental concept of, 214; Hum- 
ean concept of particularism, 214- 
215; behaviourist concept of, 215- 
216; materialist concept of, 216- 
217; relation between body and, 
217-218; cosmic interaction and, 
218-219; functioning of, 220-221; 
pragmatic concept of, 221-227; 
instrumentalism and the, 227-228; 
emergence of the creative, 228; 
structure of the, 228-229; creative 
intelligence and the, 229-231; in- 
terrelation of functions of the, 232- 
240; meaningful reaction of, to 
environment, 232-234; minded 
control, 234-239; qualitative lev- 
els, 239-240; relation between na- 
ture and, 255-256; subjective per- 
spectives of, 256-257, 369-386; the 
cosmos and, 260ff.; a process of 
adjustment, 335. 

Mind-body relation, 170-192; inter- 
relation of lower and higher cen- 
tres, 170-171; interrelation of men- 
tal and physical control, 171-209. 

Minkowski, 87. 

Molecules, structure of, 103. 

Monad, and the Whole, the, 252-260; 
cosmic interaction, 252, 253, 257- 
258; structure and duration, 255; 
creative adaptation, 255-257; new 
social emphasis, 258-259; creative 
response, 259-260. 

Monism, psychological, 126-127. 

Morality, a creative adaptation, 264- 
265. 

Morley. See Michelson. 

Mother Earth, 95; the awakening 
of, 456-464; the song of, 464-466. 

Motion, concept of, 86, 270-300; 
relative, 345-346. 

Motor patterns, 160. 

Moulton, F. R., An Introduction to 
Astronomy, quoted, 107. 


INDEX 


Mutations, concept of, 27, 57, 59. 
Mutual aid, law of, 37-38. 


Nature, equilibrium of, 20; creative 
passing of, 114, 403-404, 431-482; 
evolution in, 201-203; relation of 

man to, 262-263; selective func- 
tioning in, 262-265; relation of, 
with God, 268; theory of the pass- 
ing of, 290-294; Whitehead’s con- 
cept of, 316-317; the order of, 327; 
law and order in, 335-337, 341; 
qualities of, 342ff.; sense quali- 
ties of, 343-354; perspectives in, 
305-358; implied perspectives in, 
358-360; conditional perspectives 
in, 360-361; future perspectives in, 
361-362; space-time perspectives 
in, 862-364, 385-386; sense per- 
spectives in, 365-868; primary and 
secondary perspectives in, 368 ff.; 
mental perspectives in, 3869-386; 
determination in, 4265. 

Nerve cells, group conduct of, 157. 

Nervous system, 83, 92; history of, 
135; sense qualities, 137-142; Berg- 
son’s contraction theory of, 138- 
140; cutaneous sensation, 142-145; 
selection and integration, 145-147; 
Imagination pattern, 147-154; sup- 
pression, 154-156; group conduct 
in, 156-158; instincts and emo- 
tions, 158-159; meaning patterns 
in, 159-160; integrity of the, 160- 
161; behaviour and the, 161-162; 
mind and the, 162-166; lower cen- 
tres of the, 166-168; controls in, 
ive, 

Neural levels, 154-156. 

Neural patterns, 148 ff. 

Neutralism, concept of, 330-332. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, theories of, 
Mb, 216, 2471, 280, 285, 287; 
292, 295, 296, 300, 301, 305, 
309, 316, 317, 341, 395, 397, 
405, 413, 425, 427, 448. 

Nietzsche, F. W., 8, 459. 

Nilsson, Heribert, cited, 60. 

Nominalism, 329-330, 337, 339. 

Numbers, theory of, 310. 

Nunn, T. Percy, Proceedings of the 


113, 
289, 
307, 
403, 


481 


Aristotelian Society, quoted, 346, 
347, 


Ontogeny, problems of, 50-56. 

Optic thalamus, protopathic system 
in the, 143-145. 

Order, a characteristic of system, 
18-19; significance of, in proper- 
ties of elements, 19-20; argument 
for, in evolution, 28; diversity 
and relativity in, 42-42; in na- 
ture, 335-3387; abstract aspect of, 
338-340. 

Organism, unicellular and multicel- 
lular types of, 201-202; social, 202. 

Organization, levels of, 100-101. 

Osborn, Henry Fairfield, The Origin 
and Evolution of Life, quoted, 22, 
23-24, 25, 26-27, 28, 29, 35, 36. 


Paleozoic era, Grand Canyon and 
the, 64. 

Pan-psychists, theories of, 83. 

Pantheism, 267. 

Parallelism, theory of, 181. 

Parker, G. H., “The Evolution of 
the Nervous System,” quoted, 135, 
1360137. 

Parmenides, 4387, 441. 

Particular, concept of the, 327-329; 
problem of the universal and the, 
329-342. 

Perception, mind-body relation in, 
175. 

Periodicity, laws of, 104. 

Persistence, 425. 

Perspectives, variation in, 354-368; 
relativity of, 355-358; implied, 
358-360; conditional, 360-361; fu- 
ture, 361-362; space-time, 362-364, 
385-386; sense, 365-368; primary 
and secondary, 368-386; mental, 
359-386, 398; constants in, 384; re- 
lation of consciousness to, 386-401. 

Philosophy, province of, 17, 47, 380- 
382; problems of modern, 32-33. 

Phylogeny, problems of, 56-57. 

Physico-chemical energy, 23-24, 25. 

Physico-psychological relation, 181- 
184. 

Planck, 308, 366. 


482 


Planets, atomic theory and the, 312- 
313. 

Plato, cited and quoted, 24 n., 48, 
44, 76, 77, 79, 110, 129, 194, 220, 
271,288, .326,) (333, 354) .3a%;) 303; 
340, 380, 441, 444, 445, 452. 

Pleistocene era, 64. 

Plotinus, 185. 

Plus factor, the, 23, 33, 41, 78, 125. 

Poincaré, Henri, 87. 

Pragmatism, 221-226. 

Predetermination, evidence of, in 
chromatin, 28. 

Preformism, evolution and, 96-98. 

Prenatal reflexes, 193. : 

Primates, development of, 64. 

Progress, human, 411-419. 

Protagoras, 326, 335. 

Protopathic system, the, 142-148. 

Protoplasm, 25, 29. 

Psychoanalysis, 239-240. 

Ptolemaic theory, 280, 289. 


Quantum theory, 306, 307-314, 341, 
366. 


Rabaud, E., “L’adaptation et levo- 
lution,” quoted, 69-70, 71-72. 

Radiant energy, concept of, 447-449. 

Rays, light, 102, 107, 285, 286, 288. 

Realism, empirical, 7; and idealism, 
467. 

Reality, 40, 262, 326, 331, 382-383, 
384, 385; arbitrary bifurcations of, 
252, 254) \250; 258, 259; '261;) 265, 
327, 329, 342; levels of, 266-268; 
mathematics and, 307 ff.; history 
and, 401 ff.; structure of, 441, 442; 
concept of law of equilibrium 
in, 441-446; concept of ultimate, 
451 ff. 

Reason, concept of, 341-342. 

Rectigradation, law of, 28, 98. 

Recurrence, a characteristic of sys- 
tem, 18-19. 

Relativity, in interaction, 42-43; 
Michelson and Morley experiment 
in, 276-279; special theory of, 
279-294; Einstein’s special theory 
of, 279-290; concept of motion 
and, 290-294, 298-303; general 


COSMIC EVOLUTION 


theory of, 294-307; Ejinstein’s 
general theory of, 294-302; Gauss’s 
concept of, 300-301; monetary 
standard an example of, 301-303; 
Whitehead’s theory of, 303; arti- 
ficial approach to theory of, 305- 
307; mathematics and, 322-325; 
perspectives and, 326-327; theory 
of, 332; time and, 401 ff.; cosmic 
implications of the theory of, 424- 
432; cosmic cycles and the theory 
of, 441; electro-magnetic field 
and, 426. 

Religion, province of, 17; cosmic, 
456; as creative synthesis, 462. 

Repetition, law of ancestral, 26. 

Reptiles, age of, 64. 

Retardation, law of, 28. 

Reverence, development of religious, 
102. 

Rhythm, of universe, 40-41; earth’s 
history seen as, 64 ff.; cosmic, 109; 
law of compensatory, 443-446. 

Richards, Faraday Lecture 
quoted, 21. 

Rivers, W. H. R., 142, 154; Instinct 
and the Unconscious, cited, 155. 

Rocks, radioactivity of, 65. 

Royce, Josiah, 126-127, 364. 

Roscellinus, 329. 

Ross, W. D., 24n. 

Russell, Bertrand, 289, 290, 292, 330, 
356, 361, 370, 372; Mysticism and 
Logic, quoted, 47-48, 362, 370; 
The Analysis of Mind, quoted, 
235; Scientific Method in Philoso- 
phy, quoted, 362, 365, 3/71; 37 ne 
A, B, C of Atoms, cited, 290, 429, 
480. 

Russell, Leonard, 340 n. 

Rutherford, 106, 308. 


by, 


Salvation, 381, 469, 470. 

Santayana, George, cited, 332-333. 

Saturn, rings of, 312-313. 

Schiller, F. C. S., cited, 221 n. 

Schopenhauer, 90. 

Science, province of, 17, 47, 67, 82- 
83, 170, 341, 380; characteristic 
law of, 17; effect of bias of, 18; 
teleology and, 19 ff.; evil effect of 


INDEX 


thought separation on, 50; mate- 
rialism and, 123 ff., 261. 
Selection, Darwinian theory of, 25, 


56, 57, 58, 67, 72, 77, 124, 146, 262. 


Sensations, cutaneous, 142-145; or- 
gans of, 143-144; reactions, 144- 
145; selective and _ integrative 
functions of, 145-147; imagination 
patterns and, 147-154; “meaning” 
reactions, 148. 

Sense, perspectives of, 365-368. 

Sense differentiation, 102. 

Sense organs, 92. 

Sense perspectives, 354-368. 

Sense qualities, 187 ff., 343-354; rela- 
tion of, to external stimulus, 137- 
142; contraction theory concern- 
ing, 138-140. 

Sensory impulses, 146 ff. 

Sentiments, complex patterns of, 
159-160. 

Sex love, 194. 

Shand, A. F., The Foundations of 
Character, quoted, 159. 

Shapley, cited, 440. 

Sherrington, Charles S., 117, 148, 
156, 158; The Integrative Action 
of the Nervous System, quoted, 
PDA 

Sight, 343-347, 351-352. 

Sinclair, May, The New Idealism, 
cited, 388-390, 396. 

Smith, Perrin, quoted, 27. 

Smith, experiments by Guyer and, 
62. 

Social interaction, intermental en- 
ergy in, 37. 

Social milieu, 200-204. 

Social relations, concept of mind 
and, 161-166; environment and, 
204-209; effect of mental per- 
spective on, 374-377. 

Society, organism of, 202 ff.; psychic 
relation implied in, 203; creative 
relation of individuals to, 206- 
208. 

Solar energy, periodicities of, 66. 

Soul, creation of a, 74-75; birth of 
a, 240-252; type of organization, 
242: a cosmic adaptation, 244-245; 
evolution of the individual, 245- 


483 


247; a creative adaptation, 247- 
Zon. 

Sound, 144, 346-349. 

Sound patterns, 71-72. 

Space, 430; cosmic, 432-441; Hin- 
stein’s conception of, 433 ff. 

Space-time, 42, 241, 367; perspec- 
tives, 84, 326, 343; concepts of, 
86-90, 341, 347; equilibrium, 114; 
geometry, 427-428; events, 430- 
431. 

Spencer, Herbert, quoted, 30; cited 
on theory of matter, 83. 

Spermatozoa, artificial treatment, 53. 

Spinoza, 77, 124, 180, 181, 182, 188, 
252, 254. 

Spiritual, selection, 457; re-creation, 
460. 

Star stream, 440. 

St. John, 435. 

Stockard, 52. 

Stout, G. F., Mind, quoted, 351. 

Structure, 78, 84, 92, 93, 98, 337; 


thought, 91-92; molecules, 103; 
hierarchy of elements, 106-108; 
mental, 235-236, 239; monads, 


255; history and, 404-406. 
Subject-object relation, 145-154, 165. 
Sumner, Francis B., “The Organism 

and its Environment,’ quoted, 

50-51, 59. 

Supermind, the, 270, 271. 
Suppression, neural, 154-156, 161. 
Synthesis, creative, 84, 97; chemical, 

106. 

System, characteristics of, 18; fit- 
ness of properties and elements 

for, 21-22. 


Taste stimuli, 141. 

Tchijewski, cited, 66. 

Teleology, science and, 19 ff. 

Tests, intelligence, 197. 

Thomson, J. Arthur, Science and 
Religion, quoted, 105 n. 

Thomson, J. J., 288, 308. 

Thought, as an energy system, 30- 
31; structural evolution of, 91- 
92, 93; a type of neural pattern, 
148-149; trial and error process 
in, 165. 


484 


Thyroid gland, 168. 

Time, 430; concept of, 88, 306, 323, 
441-443: relativity and, 401, 402; 
Einstein’s concept of, 424, 

Titchener, 225, 349. 

Touch, qualities of, 347-355. 

Traits, diversity in hereditary, 50- 


56; constancy of, 56; concept of 
individual, 193 ff. 
Transcendentalism, 227. 
Trial and error process. See Adap- 


tation. 
Truth, 378-379. 


Unconscious will, Schopenhauer’s 
concept of, 90. 

Unity, spiritual type of, 209. 

Universals, 337-338. 

Universal and the particular, prob- 
lem of the, 329-342. 

Universe, rhythm of the, 40-41; con- 
cept of the, 46; concept of, as 
dynamic equilibrium, 114. 


COSMIC EVOLUTION 


Variation, theories of, 57-58; hered- 
ity and, 63. 

Vertebrate life, beginning of, 64. 

Vitalism, 60-61; theory of, 83. 


Waagen, 27. 

Wallace, cited, 49. 

Wallas, Graham, The Great Seeiee 
cited, 149. 

Watson, John, cited, 148n., 206. 

Wave lengths, 102, 121. 

Weber, 181, 308, 365. 

Weismann, cited, 61, 63. 

Weyl, 401, 424; Nature, quoted, 425, 
426-427. 

Whitehead, A. N., 287, 290, 307, 
362, 402; theory of relativity, 303- 


305; The Concept of Nature, 
quoted, 304; concept of nature, 
316-318. 


William of Champeaux, 329. 
World, concept of a closed, 114. 


Xenophanes, quoted, 45. 


Pe, 


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BD5i1 .B72 
Cosmic evolution : outlines of cosmic 


Princeton Theological Seminary—Speer Library 


1 1012 00103 8225 [im 









